Walking with God

We are told that Enoch "walked with God, and he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Talk about a teasingly sketchy biography. Wouldn't you like to know what went on in that relationship? Then there was Abraham, the "friend of God" (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23). With everyone else, God spoke in riddles, but with Moses, "face to face" (Exodus 33:11). King David's recorded prayers sound to me like love songs, while everybody else's prayers sound like . . . prayers.

Here and there, even among the saved, God has his special friends. Who gets to be in this exclusive club? Partly I want to answer that God chooses his friends. Partly I want to answer that James 2:23 gives a clue to criterion for admission into this sweet divine confidence: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness."

Is God so rarely believed? I don't know, but I have friends who are involved in what I can only call "friendships" with God. I mark their prayer life, and several uncommon things characterize it: continuity, creativity, and confidence.

My friend Kathleen needed to fly to St. Louis from Houston. She had a little over $200 and needed plane tickets for four people. Tickets were running about $200 each, round-trip. Therefore she needed $800 and was $600 short---but she had to go. So she knelt down and laid out her money on the bed to show God, and she asked Him to provide. A few days later, her husband called and told her that Southwest Airlines was celebrating its 25th anniversary, and for one week, ticket prices would be $25 one way. So she bought four round-trip tickets for $200 plus tax.

This is no anomaly for Kathleen. She lives in what I can only describe as a "zone." I once heard that the difference between Christians can be compared to travelers gathered at the edge of a frozen pond that they must cross. They have it on good authority that the ice is solid. But even with that testimony, some will only crawl out inch by inch on hands and knees, while others will bound onto the silvery skin with boldness and delight.

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