Are you getting your steps in? My watch records my steps. When grocery shopping, I look for the parking place farthest from the door. This works for me, but not so much for my family. On Sunday mornings, I park down the street and walk up to the church. I’ve met some nice people along the way. Some of our members have offered me rides to the church. I like to get my steps in. On Labor Day 2002, I walked out the door and ran twenty miles for the first time. Then I trained for and ran a marathon. My friend Ron Lyles said he had two prayers after he finished his first marathon: 1) Thank you for the health to run this far; 2) Forgive me for destroying my health in a single day.
Paul walked twenty miles one day, with no apparent harm. In Troas, he told his companions to meet him in Assos and then took off on foot. He could have taken a boat ride with them to Assos from Troas. Instead, he chose to walk twenty miles while his companions sailed. Luke doesn’t explain why. Perhaps he had friends along the way. Or he needed to pray. Even though his companions took the boat, Paul did not walk alone. God was with him the whole way.
I had a friend named Al Loiry in Cedar Park. He was a retired pastor and associational missionary. We both lived in the Buttercup subdivision. Almost every day I saw him out walking along the road, often with a staff. He was like a modern-day Moses. His face reflected the glory of the Lord. He always smiled as he walked. I knew he was talking to the Lord. Fulfilling Psalm 34:5, he was radiant as he looked to the Lord, walking in the Spirit. One day, like Enoch of old, he must have been closer to God’s house than his own, and he walked all the way home.
Luke records stops in the Greek Isles of Chios and Samos before they reached Miletus. Paul stopped on the shore to avoid being held up in Asia. The Apostle was a man on a mission. He wanted to reach Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost, and he knew he was cutting it close. Imagine being in Jerusalem on Pentecost, celebrating the birth of the church and the coming of the Holy Spirit in the very place where it happened. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote about walking in the Spirit. After listing the fruit of the Spirit and calling the Galatians to crucifixion of the flesh, he said, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).
