“Pray for us… that the LORD your God may show us the way in which we should walk and the things we should do… Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God… that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.” Jeremiah 42:3-6

Walk the Talk

Lately I’ve been taking a hard look at whether or not I actually live my life according to my declarations of faith. I’ve found that simply declaring aloud what I believe is often the easy part—especially if the only people I tell are those who are already believers.

Sometimes we won’t declare things publicly just in case God doesn’t come through in the way we said He would.

I remember an incident from 30 years ago—long before we had cell phones. My husband, child, and I had driven 500 miles to visit some family friends, and we were driving away. After going many miles down a busy freeway at rush hour, I realized I did not have my purse. My 4-year-old in the back seat said, “It’s okay, Mommy, God knows where it is. He will show you.” This was a bold statement of faith—a faith I confess I did not have, which was proven by my fret and worry. If it had been me reassuring someone about a lost purse, I would have said something less definite, like, “If God wants you to have your purse, you will find it.”

God honored the rock-solid faith of that child. I no sooner arrived at my mother’s house when her phone rang. I had apparently put the purse on top of the car and we had driven away. Another driver had seen the purse fall before we even got to the freeway; he stopped, picked it up, and followed us as long as he could. Unable to get our attention, he took the purse home with him, checked my I.D., found my mother’s number that I’d written on something as an emergency contact, and called her. We retrieved the purse later that night, everything intact.

In today’s Scripture, we see the Israelites’ bold declaration of faith in God. They told the prophet Jeremiah to ask God what their next step should be. They promised that whatever He said, they would do, whether they were pleased or displeased with His answer. Ten days later, God spoke. And what do you suppose they did? Exactly as they had already decided to do—in direct opposition to what God said they should do.

This is what I ask myself today: Am I living out my public declarations of faith? Or am I all talk, with no real walk? “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves…” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

“Lord, it’s easy for us to say we believe, but we don’t always know when our actions prove that our words are hypocritical. Show us, Lord, that we may live in truth. Amen.”