Let your walking do the talking

A group of Buddhist monks on a 2,300-mile "Walk for Peace" from Texas to Washington, D.C. have traveled 1221 miles through six states. Along the way, through snow and ice, they have encountered thousands—some with warm, open arms, some with cold, vitriolic opposition and irretractable conversion. Some Baptist pastors and their congregations have met the Monks with food, shelter and prayer, “We need peace”. One Baptist pastor one state over confronted the monks with doctrinal differences in the pursuit of peace and divisive rhetoric then requiring police presence. Peace—who’s right in the eyes of God? 

It depends on your feet. 

God gave a word to the wise who lived in the time of the prophet Hosea when the people were  on the verge of anarchy, blood in the streets, faltering in faithlessness, at war with their neighbors and themselves and their Maker (Hosea 2:18- Hosea 14:9)

9Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; [Whoever] is discerning, let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right, And the righteous will walk in them, but transgressors will stumble in them.  Hosea 14:9.

God’s answer to the path of peace: Halak.  In Hebrew, this figurative word literally means “how you come and, go”, simply put: how you live. The wise way to walk, to live is to live in God’s righteousness according to the text. 

• Live right with faithfulness (Ex. 20:3): Have one God, not many. Not your job, your club, your church. 

• Live right with compassion (Matt. 22:26-40): Treat your neighbor as you want to be treated. Remember that you once were aliens. 

• Live right exercising justice: Don’t erase the ancient lines of fairness (Pro. 22:28). The boundary of God-given morality is eternal, not temporal, relative. 

God’s people did not recognize what they had become and where they were headed—exile—because they did not acknowledge how they were living, walking—antithetical to their covenant and constitution with God.  But their destination was correctable if they would not “talk the talk”, but also “walk the walk” of heartful love.

Click on the link below. Consider this cross encounter when Buddhists and Baptist ---different paths toward the same destination--peace. https://youtu.be/PyMHGm25wVk?si=UoAEGtc1OuF4H1j1 

Be wise as you ask yourself: Where is my walk taking me? You are where your feet take you.