Walk With Him
By Jenny Komenda
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
John 8:12
"And thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me."
Moses 6:34
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It is among the simplest invitations the Lord has ever extended — not study me, not admire me from a distance, but walk with me. There is an intimacy in walking together that no other posture quite captures. Walking is unhurried. It is side by side. It leaves room for conversation, for silence, and for the quiet kind of knowing that only comes with long distances shared together.
During His mortal ministry, Jesus issued a similar call: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). He did not promise a life without darkness — He promised that the night would never swallow us whole. When we walk alongside the Light of the World, we are assured of a lamp that no storm can extinguish.
But what does it actually look like to walk with the Savior in our ordinary life? Emily Belle Freeman offered this gentle answer: "Every time we open the scriptures, we have an opportunity to walk with Christ. Every time we stand as a witness of Him, we walk with Him. When we mourn with others, or comfort a friend, or help to shoulder a burden, these are the moments we walk with Christ." The path is not strange or exotic. It runs through kitchens and hospital rooms, through late-night conversations and early-morning prayers. Every small act of love is a step taken in His company. In the words of C.S. Lewis, we walk with Christ as we learn to "stand back from all of our natural fussings and frettings" and "let that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in."
And the longer we walk, the more we begin to see as He sees. President Henry B. Eyring taught, "If you walk with the Savior long enough, you will learn to see everyone as a child of God with limitless potential, regardless of what his or her past may have been." The journey reshapes our vision before it begins to reshape our circumstances.
There will, of course, be stretches of the road that feel impossibly lonely. But Jeffrey R. Holland reminds us of a sacred truth: "Because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path... Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are." He has already walked every dark mile ahead of us. His footprints are there in the dust, waiting for ours to fall beside them.
The invitation remains open, as near as your next breath, your next prayer, your next quiet act of kindness: Walk with me. And if you will, you will find that He has been walking with you all along.
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