Watching Where You Walk While In This World
“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.” Ephesians 5:15 (KJV)
My wife, Gloria, and I make it a point to walk at minimum two and a half miles four days a week. We refer to it as our “Hour of Power” time as we spend this time together in prayer. We have found this time to be a personal blessing as well as beneficial to our connection with our Creator, Jesus Christ, and as a couple.
However, there is a stretch of the sidewalk where some weeds have elected to escape their boundaries and extend their freedom on the right and left side of the side walk. For the most part an assigned landscaping crew will regularly mow the weeds back and consequently cut away any weed rebellion. But during rainy season in South Florida the reprobate weeds resurrect and are resolute in making their presence known.
There is one specific species of weed that will surely get your attention with a subtle yet smarting swipe! The grass bur (Cenchrus spinifex) or as my wife calls them sticker berries is a thorny and prickly weed. It has a clandestine capacity to catch you and embed itself to your clothing or skin. If you do not exercise some wisdom by watching where you walk they will welcome you with some major discomfort. “Ouch!” is the operative word and I cannot tell you how many times those prickly weeds have been a pain on our path of praise and prayer! Therefore, in order to avoid their ill intrusion, we have to be intentional in watching where we are walking.
Similarly, our opening text calls us to walk circumspectly. It means to be watchful and discreet; cautious and prudent. In a culture that is inundated with iniquity and invested in the enemy’s itinerary (directing souls in deceit, despair, division and damnation), we must be deliberate and disciplined to walk with discretion in a world deeply disconnected from the God of Scripture.
The spiritually lost (those without the spirit of Christ) deliberately denounce the Lord’s rightful place in their life and reject the relationship that He requires. Consequently, God releases them to their reprobate mindset. See what Scripture says:
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” Romans 1:28-32 (KJV)
All of the sinful and devilish dispositions that are depicted in the aforementioned text are like gratuitous grass burs which desire to set you back spiritually. So purpose to pay attention to where you walk in this world or the sticker berries (Cenchrus spinifex) will attack your spirit, attach to your Christ-like clothing and thereby, cause you to say: “Ouch!”
For the Glory of God,
PBKSR