What Does It Mean to “Walk with the Lord,” and How Do You Do It?

• To walk with God means to adopt a Godly lifestyle, meditating on God daily and living your life according to His will.
• Walk with God by praying and studying the Bible. Meditate every day on God’s goodness and the blessings He has bestowed on you.
• Act out your faith by fellowshipping with other believers and obeying God’s commands.

What does it mean to walk with God?

Walking with God means to be in harmony with Him as you journey through life. To be in harmony with God requires that you listen to His commandments, put your faith in Him, and work to follow His path for you. To understand what it means to walk with God on a spiritual level, consider what it means to literally take a walk with a friend or relative. When you take a walk with someone, the two of you are traveling in one direction, and there is an overall sense of harmony, unity, and community between the two of you during your walk. Enoch is the first person in the Bible said to walk with God. According to the Scripture, "Enoch walked with God for 300 years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:22–24). The gist of this passage is that Enoch was in close community with God throughout all the years of his life, so much so that God took him away to Paradise at the end of his days. While this passage does not suggest that anyone who walks with God will be taken to Heaven without seeing death, it does imply that walking with God opens up the pathway there.

Why should I walk with God?

Walking with God makes everything possible. When you walk with God, you embody the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. These holy attributes mean that what you hope for is sure to come to fruition, because when you walk with God, your desires and His are one and the same. As Matthew 19:26 says, “With God, all things are possible.” Without Him, then, nothing is!

Being close to God will bring you comfort. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me,” writes David in Psalm 23:4. This verse perfectly highlights what it means to walk with God: it means you are not alone, because He is with you and He is protecting you. Even in your darkest moments, you can rest assured that He is watching over you, and that everything will turn out all right. As James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you."

He will be there to help you when you need it. It’s much easier to ask someone for help when they’re walking alongside you than it is when they’re miles away. The same holds true for walking with God. When you walk in harmony with God, He is close by always, ready to hear your prayers for aid or clarity. As Hebrews 4:15-16 tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

It isn’t worth it not to walk with Him! When you can have everything you need by walking with God, why would you choose to do otherwise? It can be a challenge to walk with God at times, but His rewards—love, comfort, safety, hope—are worth it.

How to Walk with the Lord

Let go of distractions. Before you can focus on God, you need to let go of all the worldly things that distract you from your relationship with God. These distractions may not be “sins,” per se, but they include anything that you intentionally or subconsciously prioritize over God. If you were walking with a friend and they kept scrolling their their cell phone rather than interacting with you, you wouldn't actually be walking "together" on a meaningful level. Similarly, the distractions you focus on instead of focusing on God can prevent you from really walking together with God. Sins that you cling to create an obvious distraction, but they are not the only things you need to watch out for. Even things that can be beneficial can become harmful distractions if you are not careful. For instance, working hard and earning money to support your family is a good thing. If you become obsessed with work and money to the point of neglecting your family and neglecting your relationship with God, though, you have then allowed it to become a distraction.

Read the Scriptures. Christianity holds that the Bible is the word of God. It may not give you specific instructions concerning the direction your life has taken, but it does present a good picture of what God wants for and from humanity. Since God will never call someone to do something that defies Scripture, having a thorough understanding of what the Bible says can help guide you away from harmful missteps.

Pray. Prayer allows the believer to stay in close, personal connection with God. Prayers of thanksgiving, praise, and supplication all have their rightful place. The important thing is to pray what's in your heart. Think again about how you behave when walking with a friend. You may walk in silence sometimes, but oftentimes, the two of you talk, laugh, and cry together. Prayer is what allows the believer to talk, laugh, and cry together with God.

Meditate. Meditation can be a tricky concept, but essentially, it means spending time in God's presence and mulling over God's works. Ignore the pressures and distractions of the physical realm for a short time every day and just think on the Lord and His blessings. Modern day meditation usually involves deep breathing exercises, mantras, and exercises meant to clear the mind. While these practices alone do not quite hold the same meaning as spiritual meditation, many believers still find that they are a good way to clear the mind of distractions so that one can focus more fully on God. If standard meditation practices do not work well for you, though, simply do whatever you can to escape from worldly distractions and spend time thinking about God. Listen to music, take a walk in a nearby park, and so on.

Pay attention to signs from God. While God may seem distant or silent at times, there are also times when God may interrupt the usual flow of things in a significant enough way to change the path a person is on. These signs of providence can be subtle sometimes, so keep your eyes and heart open to discern them. The story of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 24:15-20) provides a great example of the Lord’s providence: when Abraham's servant went to look for a bride for Abraham, God brought the servant to a well, and while he was praying for the right girl to arrive, Rebekah came and offered him and his camels a drink—a chosen sign. The meeting was too important to merely be a coincidence. Instead, providence brought Rebekah to the well at just the right time and guided her to perform just the right actions. You might get signs from the Lord via dreams or visions, or even just via gut feelings. Pay attention to your instincts: they may be the Lord’s way of communicating with you.

Consider the times in your life when you felt “in harmony” with God. Those days were likely days on which you were walking with God. To understand what it means to “walk with God,” think about when in your life you felt close to God and when you felt you were straying away from the path. To walk with Him, seek to model the behaviors you followed during the times you felt near to God in the past, and actively try to avoid the behaviors that previously led you astray. Think about times when you felt lost, directionless, or distant from God. Ask yourself if you were doing things that pushed God away during that time, even if those things were as simple as not making time for prayer, church, or meditation. Those days may have been days on which you paused or took a wrong turn in your walk.

Obey God's commands. To walk with God, you must keep in step with Him. To keep in step with Him, you need to model your actions after His and follow the instructions God has already provided all of humankind with. Part of this process means obeying God's commandments regarding moral behavior. While some view these instructions as being restrictive, ultimately, they are meant to keep humanity safe and spiritually connected to God. The most important aspect of following God's commands involves following God's command to love—to love God, to love one's neighbors, and even to love oneself. Model your life after the love God has shown and continues to show for humanity.

Seek guidance from the Holy Spirit. While some steps can be determined via Scriptures and church tradition, other steps on your walk with God are more personal. To take those steps, you will need to pray to God and ask to obtain an understanding of what those steps are. Children rely on their caretakers to guide them along safe, positive paths. They may think they know all the answers, but inevitably, the time will come when they realize that they should have listened to guidance offered by their parents, grandparents, etc., instead of stubbornly getting themselves into trouble or danger. In the same way, believers ultimately rely on the Holy Spirit to guide them along paths that are spiritually positive.

Have patience when God doesn't seem to be present. The answer to a prayer or the solution to a difficult circumstance may not arrive as promptly as you would like. In order to walk alongside God, though, there are times when you must slow down your own pace and walk at God's pace. Ultimately, God will guide you to the place you are supposed to be at the time you are supposed to arrive. You might be in a rush to get there, but if you want to walk with God, you must trust that God's chosen time of arrival is better than yours when the two disagree.

Walk with others on the same path. While you can certainly have loved ones outside of the faith, it is important to fellowship with others who share your dedication to God. These people can become your support here on Earth, and you can support them in return. Other believers can also help keep you accountable to the commitment you have made to walk with God. Keep in mind that God often uses the people in one's life to guide your steps.

Keep walking. No matter how many times you trip and stumble, you need to dust yourself off and continue walking. God will not turn you away, even if you temporarily lose sight of the road you're supposed to travel on.