INSPIRATION

This week, for our Tuesday link up with Holley Gerth, we will be sharing a story of someone who has inspired us to keep dreaming. It can be someone from the Bible or our family or down the street.

To be honest, this one kind of stumped me. There are so many people to choose from in my life that it's hard to narrow it down to one. With the articles I write for the paper, I meet a lot of very inspiring people - people who have realized their dreams through a lot of hard work, perseverance and faith.

I also have family members who inspire me, and this doesn't even touch all the people in the Bible that inspire me, too. The list some well-knowns like Moses and Paul, but it also includes some people you may not have heard of like Shiphrah and Puah.

The person that inspires me the most though is Enoch. We are first introduce to Enoch in Genesis 5, and he has the distinction of one of the few people who never died. Instead, God just took him up to heaven.

"Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." Genesis 5:22-24

Enoch is mentioned again in the Faith Hall of Fame listed in Hebrews 11:5. "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God."

Why does Enoch inspire me? It's not because he never died. It's because the only thing the Bible lists that Enoch did was walk with God. For hundreds of years. The result of walking with God was that God was pleased with Him.

There Enoch is, sandwiched in that faith hall of fame with Biblical greats like Noah and Abraham - men whose deeds have been well-known Sunday school stories for generations.

But Enoch - his only claim to fame was that he walked with God.

I find the story of Enoch to be inspiring because he didn't please God with great deeds. He pleased God because he chose to daily make the quiet choice to put his hand into God's and just walk with Him.

Why is this inspiring to me? Well, the truth is I tend to get really hung with up with doing and things like making a difference, having impact, and being productive, but just as Jesus told Martha to take a page out of Mary's book, that sitting at His feet was far better than bustling around, Enoch reminds me that no matter what my dreams, no matter what I accomplish - even good or great things - the most important thing in all of it is that I walk with God.

Without God, without that daily intimacy of trusting God enough to put my hand in His and move forward wherever He leads, even realized dreams are empty and meaningless.

So, Enoch inspires me. He inspires me that it is the quiet, daily devotion to God that makes the biggest difference - both in my own life and in those around me. He reminds me to be still and know that God is, well, God which means I'm not. I don't know about you, but that takes a world of weight off of my shoulders.

I don't have to have all the answers. I don't have to be uber organized with graph charts and to do list systems and measure my productivity.

I just have to walk with God - that is enough to make Him pleased with me.

~ Blessings, Bronte