The Walk of Enoch

“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” -James 4:8a

In order to properly explain why this is an aspect of God’s character, first I need to briefly highlight a couple of other attributes. Those attributes are His eternal nature and that He is triune, which means He is a Trinity. Lets first look at the eternal nature. God has always been. He has no beginning or end. There is nothing that came before Him and nothing that will come after. Anything else that has ever existed came after Him and came into being because of Him. God has always existed. This means that the characteristics of God have always existed. The Power, The Love, The Wisdom… are all eternal.

That brings us to the Trinity. It’s common knowledge amongst the Church that God is a trinity. It’s also common knowledge that most of us struggle with explaining what that means. My understanding of the trinity is there is one God who is made up of three persons. The three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are individual while all making up one God. By individual I mean that there are things about each that distinguish them from one another. But they are all God and are all the same God. God is the type of Being. Just as we are a human being, God is a… well, a God Being I guess. If you disagree with my take on it, that’s cool. You’re entitled to your own opinion and I’m not claiming to be an expert.

So, that brings us to the relational aspect of God. If God is three Persons in One and each is able to interact with each other, and are not merely different forms of one Person as some think of the trinity, than that means the Three have relationship with one another. And if They have always existed and if They have always been as They are now (see my previous article about His unchanging nature) then the concept of relationship has always existed. Relationships were not created when God made Adam. In fact, relationships weren’t created at all. They always have been because The Father, Son and Holy Ghost have always been communicating, trusting, creating, and loving with one another.

So what does that say about loneliness? In short: it’s a lie. Even if God had never made Eve, Adam would still have had God with him. This is true today for each and every one of us. God is with us always. And we always have access to Him thanks to the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:18 “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;“. So anytime we find ourselves feeling lonely we need to stop and recognize that something is amiss. Sure, our circumstances may be that we don’t have good relationships with others or that we don’t have any friends. But you always have God, and if you doubt the truth of that then you have bought a lie of the enemy.

I’d like to go back to Adam though. Every time God made something He said it was good. And this makes sense, because He is good and perfect. It stands to reason then that everything He makes is good and perfect. So why then does He make Adam only to say “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”(Genesis 2:18) This seems a bit odd. Did God mess up when He made man? No. He made him just right. So why did He not make Eve at the same time? Could it be that God wanted to get our attention so that He might express an extremely important truth to us? God is a relational being. God made man in His image. Therefore man is a relational being. Isolate yourself too long and bad things tend to happen. Succumb to loneliness and you will live a sad and depressing existence. Even in the prison system, prisoners are punished with solitary confinement. People have literally become mentally unstable as a result of not having healthy interactions with the rest of humanity. This isn’t just a statement about husbands and wives but about the human experience in general. Don’t neglect relationships, with God or with man. These are of the utmost importance. After all, is it not when we engage in relationship with others, showing them the true love of Christ that we truly make an impact on those whom we meet? Have you ever heard of someone encountering the love of God from a Christian who was too busy running away from them, shouting “Stay away” as they ran in the opposite direction? I sure haven’t.

One last point that I would like to make is the significance of personality. We mostly think of our own personality as that which makes us unique. It’s what makes you who you are. And that is true. But there is another aspect of personality that I believe most of us miss out on. That aspect is this: our unique personality, designed by God, is for the benefit of others. If God had made Adam and chose to be distant with him, not having a relationship with him and then He never made Eve either, what would be the point of Adam’s personality? Would the trees and animals really care if he were an intellectual? Or if he were humorous? Who would be affected by his individuality? No one. Your personality is a gift to humanity. Only you can be you, no one else can correctly mimic who you have been made to be. That is why the enemy attempts to create conformity through fear. “Follow the trends so you’ll fit in” the enemy says to the insecure. No. Be yourself. God made your identity and it is walking in relationship with God that keeps your identity secure. Abiding in Christ results in the development of your true personality. God made our personalities but He didn’t actually create personality itself. Personality flows from Him. He is the source of identity. The first Identity and Personality. Our identities and relationships are inseparable.

By being who we are truly meant to be as we walk with God we show the world the creativity of our God. Even when we look to the gospels and observe how God expressed Himself in the form of a man we see individuality. The Son came to earth in the form of a baby, grew up and walked as a man. What ever He said and did, He did because He saw Father doing it (John 5:19). And whatever He accomplished He did so through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity walks in relationship together.

The walk of Enoch is a lifestyle of living in relationship with God. A life of constant communication with the Divine. It’s a continuous process of experiencing the identity of God and discovering your identity in Him. God is relational and desires relationship with you. He is always with you. So be with Him. Now and always.