Like Enoch: Walking with God
“And Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God took him.” Genesis 5:24 “…he had this testimony that he pleased God.” Hebrews 11:5
The godly servant/leader is known by this basic qualifying mark: he or she walks with God. He seeks the daily pleasure of His company. The walk with God never ceases to fascinate.
Enoch is the very first person in Bible history tagged with this honorable mark. His daily walk “pleased God.” Obviously the walk pleased Enoch as well. He walked right into eternity without going through death.
Adam had once known the pleasure of God’s company. This fellowship was the very purpose of his created existence. But Adam frittered away that privilege. Perhaps he took it for granted. Generations later Enoch recovered the lost companionship with the Lord. How did he find this lost fellowship?
Enoch’s name itself gives us a clue. Nomenclature was important to the ancient patriarchal people. They tended to name their offspring belatedly, after some childhood trait which might be observed.
Therefore the parents of Enoch eventually gave him the name Chanowk (Hebrew for narrowed down, as in being selected). Enoch’s name comes from the same root meaning as the term Hanukkah. We know that this Jewish festival of lights recalls dedication and consecration. Both chanowk and hanukka stem from chanuk, a word which is defined as initiating, dedicating, disciplining, as in training. Could it be that Enoch’s character is no mystery? Evidently he was a dedicated man of single-minded passion. He was committed to walking the walk with God.
His walk with the Lord was akin to the Emmaus Road travelers, Cleopas and his companion, who unwittingly walked and talked with the resurrected Christ whom they thought to be an out of town stranger. Yet when he departed their eventide meal, they said to one another: “Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us in the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32
This “burning heart” is a qualifying mark of the godly person. May God, by His Holy Spirit, breathe into us a burning heart, on fire for the presence of the Lord. Our part is to walk on with a single-minded passion and yearning for God.
Blessings
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