'I will walk before the Lord.' What does 'walking before the Lord' mean?
There are two or three expressions very like each other, yet entirely
different from each other, in the Old and in the New Testament, about
this matter. We read of 'walking with God,' and of 'walking before God,'
and of 'walking after God.' And whilst there is much that is common to
all the expressions, they look at the same idea from different angles.
'Walking with God,' communion, fellowship, and companionship are implied
there. 'Walking after God,' guidance, direction, and example, and our
poor imitation and obedience, are most conspicuous there. And 'walking
before God' means, I suppose, mainly, feeling always that we are in His
presence, and have the light of His face, and the glance of His
all-seeing eye, falling upon us. 'If I take the wings of the morning,
and fly into the uttermost parts of the sea, Thou art there.' 'Thou art
acquainted with all my ways, search me, O God!' That is walking before
God. To put it into colder words, it means the habitual--I do not say
unbroken, but habitual--effort to feel in our conscious hearts that we
are in His sight; not only that we are with Him, but that we are 'naked
and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.' And that is to be
the result, says our psalm, as it is the intention, of all that God has
been doing with us in His merciful providence, in His quickening,
sustaining, and comforting influences in the past. He sent all these
varying conditions, kept the psalmist alive, kept him from weeping, or
dried his tears, kept him from falling, with the intention that he
should be continually blessed in the continuous sunshine of God's
presence, and should open out his heart in it and for it, like a flower
when the sunbeams strike it. Oh! how different life would look if we
habitually took hold of all its incidents by that handle, and thought
about them, not as we are accustomed to do, according to whether they
tended to make us glad or sorry, to disappoint or fulfil our hopes and
purposes, but looked upon them all as stages in our education, and as
intended, if I might so say, to force us, when the tempests blow, close
up against God; and when the sunshine came, to woo us to His side. Would
not all life change its aspect if we carried that thought right into it,
and did not only keep it for Sundays, or for the crises of our lives,
but looked at all the trifles as so many magnets brought into action by
Him to attract us to Himself? Dear brother, it is not enough to
recognise God's purpose, we must fall in with it, accept the intention,
and co-operate with God in fulfilling it. It is a matter of purity and
of piety, to say, 'Thou hast delivered my soul from death, that I may
walk before Thee.'
But there has to be something more. There have to be a firm resolve, and
effort without which the firmest resolve will all come to nothing, and
be one more paving-stone for the road that is 'paved with good
intentions.' That firm resolve finds utterance in the not vain vow, 'I
will'--in spite of all opposition and difficulties--'I will walk before
the Lord,' and keep ever bright in my mind the thought, 'Thou God seest
me.'
Ay! and just in the measure in which we do so shall we have joy. In some
of those inhuman prisons where they go in for solitary confinement,
there is a little hole somewhere in the wall--the prisoner does not know
where--at which at any moment in the four-and-twenty hours the eye of
the gaoler may be, and they say that the thought of that unseen eye,
glaring in upon the felons, drives some of them half mad. The thought
that poor Hagar found to be her only comfort in the wilderness--and so
christened the well after it--'Thou God seest me,' must be the source of
our purest joy; or it must be a ghastly dread. When He comes at last,
some men will lift up their faces to the sunshine and have their faces
irradiated by the light; and some will call on the rocks and the hills
to cover them from His face, and prefer rather to be crushed than to be
blasted by the brightness of His countenance. If we are right with God,
then the gladdest of thoughts is, 'Thou knowest me altogether, and Thou
hast beset me behind and before.' If we are right with God, 'Thou hast
laid Thine hand upon me' will mean for us support and blessing. If we
are wrong, it will mean a weight that crushes to the earth.
And if we are right with Him, that same thought brings with it security
and companionship. Ah! we do not need ever to say 'I am alone' if we are
walking before God. It brings with it, of course, an armour against
temptation. What mean, lustful, worldly seduction has any power when a
man falls back on the thought, 'God sees me, and God is with me'? Do you
remember the very first instance in Scripture of the use of this phrase?
The Lord said unto Abraham, 'Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.' That
was not only a commandment, but it was a promise, and we might as truly,
for the sense of the passage, read, 'Walk before Me, and thou shalt be
perfect.' That thought of the present God draws the teeth of all raging
lions, and takes the stings out of all serpents, and paralyses and
reduces to absolute nothingness every temptation. Clasp God's hand, and
you will not fall.