Walking and Talking at the Same TIme

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.” ~ Francis of Assisi ~


When I got back recently from San Francisco someone asked me if I saw any street corner preachers. I told her I hadn’t but after reading this quote maybe I saw more than I thought.


Every one of us whether we preach at the end of our walk verbally to someone is making a statement to others by how we walk in our lives. Intentionally or not we leave an example behind for others to follow.


Often our problem is we forget to look behind us and see that trail. We like to walk forward and stop long enough to tell the person next to us they need to quit smoking, or start exercising or clean up their lives when we are doing things just as destructive to our own lives.


Sadly enough we think we can do whatever we want because we don’t plan on preaching to other people. That gets us off the hook for being accountable in our own lives. We just don’t get it that more things are caught than taught. We don’t need to verbally preach with our mouths because our lives are preaching for us by the trail of examples we are leaving behind.


A few years ago I made myself a goal that I wanted to leave behind a tremendous paper trail of writings that people could follow and find their way to Christ. Although that is a very good goal I intend to keep I also need to realize that how I live my life surrounded by those around me is even a bigger influence and reflector of the truth of who I am.


That’s what is so wonderful about God. He is the same in person that He is in paper in the Bible. We need to be that way too, the same on paper if we are writers as we are in person. We can’t overlook the sin in our lives for the sake of pointing out the sin in other. We need to walk the walk which will qualify us to talk the talk.


Although some people just don’t seem to be coordinated enough to be able to walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. It doesn’t have to be that way with us. As Christians we get our coordination from God. He is the one who helps qualify us to talk the talk when indeed our walking is our preaching thanks to following Him.

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing