Walking!

August 5th, 2023| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Last year had the highest number of pedestrian fatalities in the last 40 years: 7,508 walkers slain by vehicles. So saith the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). Up 77% since 2010. And in 2022, 20 people were killed each day, walking in the street. (Oklahoma had a technical issue and failed to send in a report, but NBC reports that the state averages 92 pedestrian deaths each year; that means last year’s total is probably even higher.)

Pam Shadel Fischer, senior director of external engagement at the GHSA:

The 41-year high signals a crisis in pedestrian safety. It has been getting worse every year. We’ve focused so much on making vehicles safer for the people inside, but we’ve sort of lost track of what we are doing for the folks outside vehicles to really address their safety.”

Skyrocketing sales of trucks and big vehicles (SUVs made up 3% of vehicles in 1983; it was 57% in 2022)? More people moving to suburbs with non-pedestrian-friendly roads (69% of pedestrian fatalities happened on roads without sidewalks in 2021, compared to 59% in 2017)? Cell phone usage while driving (more and more people have smartphones and distraction potential is very high)?

Who knows?

But this we know: walking is dangerous.

The Bible agrees, but in a qualified way: one kind of walking is bad, the other good.

BTW, the Greek word translated “walk” is peripateō (from which we get the English “peripatetic” = traveling from place to place). But in the Bible, that Greek word frequently has another meaning: “to live, conduct one’s life.” With that in mind …

And while you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,
according to the ruler of the authority of the air,
[the ruler] of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience,
… and [we] were by nature children of wrath.
Ephesians 2:1–3

The past walk (life) of the Christian—as an unbeliever—was undertaken by following powers conspiring against God, supernatural beings antagonistic to God. As unbelievers we were in the thrall of forces opposed to God—captivated by Satan’s dominion. That was us. Rebels against the authority of God. Rebels who preferred to answer the promptings of the archenemy. And we unbelievers were naturally deserving of God’s wrath. We were born that way—we were never alive to God in the first place: that was our “nature.” Born sinners, born dead, born opposed to God. Lost and hopeless. Dead!

What an indictment! A bad “walk,” indeed!

But then comes a miracle!

But God, being rich in mercy,
because of His great love with which He loved us,
even while we were dead in transgressions,
co-enlivened [us] with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and co-raised and co-seated [us] in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,
Ephesians 2:4–6

“Dead” in the past, but “co-enlivened” in the present. Intimately related to the powers of darkness in the past, but now in the heavenlies and intimately related to Christ. Subject to God’s wrath in the past, but now experiencing God’s mercy and love. “By nature” deserving of divine wrath once, but now saved “by grace.”

Why did God do all this?

We are His workmanship,
having been created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God prepared beforehand,
so that we may walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10

There’s the new walk—the walk of good works. This “walk” is good!

Let’s keep on walking … the good walk!

SOURCES: NBC, GHSA