Walking with the Spirit

The Yangtze River Bridge is a national landmark in China. It is very busy, with heavy pedestrian traffic all day, which has made it a spot where more than a thousand people have used it to commit suicide by jumping to their death into the river a hundred yards below. Beginning in 2003 a man named Chen decided to do something about it. He started going to the bridge every weekend to try to rescue people from jumping. He has talked people down, and in some cases literally tackled some down; a few have slipped through his grip and jumped anyway.

Because it is a popular spot for tourists, countless people traverse the bridge and peer over the edge. How is Chen able to tell who approaches the edge to look, and who approaches it to jump?  When asked by a reporter how he is able to tell who has come there to jump, Chen replied, “It is very easy to recognize a person walking with no spirit.”

By that he meant that he could identify someone who had no zeal in life—they look dejected or down and out; they have no spirit. Just as Chen can identify someone walking with no spirit, we should be able to spot those who are walking with the Spirit—the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote, “I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).” Walking in the Spirit, and being led by the Spirit in verse 18, means Christians need to be sensitive to God, obeying Him as He leads the believer. Walking with the Spirit means the child of God is becoming more like Jesus every day.

Christians, we need to walk in the Spirit. I recently downloaded an app that keeps track of my steps throughout the day. It’s actually a pretty powerful motivator, and I find myself looking for opportunities to walk more so that the app will be happy with me. It doesn’t feel like I have walked several miles during the course of the day, but when I look at the app each night I see how all those little steps added up. As silly as that sounds, the more we walk with the Spirit, the more we will enjoy it, and we will find ourselves walking more and more with Him. We will be able to look back and note the progress, seeing how far we have come over time. It might not feel like you got a whole lot closer to God each day, but if you look back over the last month, or year, you will see just how far you have come. 

Walking is not as much about reaching the destination as it is about the journey. We will not reach our destination until we get to heaven, so each day until then let us keep walking with the Holy Spirit.