Walking as a Spiritual Discipline

I serve as a pastor of two churches. The first one is three miles from our home, and the second is just three more miles down the same road. On Sunday morning it takes ten minutes to drive the six miles. Lately I have been wondering how long it would take to walk the entire twelve-mile round trip.

Besides the physical challenge of making that journey, I remembered hearing about Christians who practiced walking or hiking as a spiritual discipline.

About thirty years ago I saw a photo like this one of Pope John Paul II hiking in the countryside. As a kid I was struck by seeing the white robes in the woods and being surprised that the pope would do something so ordinary.

Later on in life I learned about the basic spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, reading, and fasting. Most of these activities involve sitting in a room alone, trying to concentrate on God. I'm all for concentration, and I attempt to practice at least one of those alone-time disciplines every day. However, I also like the idea that God can work in our lives while we are moving around. So I recently I tried combining walking with prayer.

"Prayer Walking" is not something you can read about in the Bible. Jesus certainly walked around a lot, but the gospels never say he prayed while doing it. The closest we get is the story of Joshua walking around the walls of Jericho, but that was in preparation to kill everyone inside -- not exactly the kind of activity I had in mind. Instead, I was thinking about walking as a way to pray for the people in the neighborhood. In our churches we have been asking God to open us up to the needs of our neighbors, so I thought that walking past their homes would provide an opportunity to pray for each household.

Last week I took my first prayer walk. (I'm proud to say that I shaved off 40 minutes from the time that Google Maps said it would take -- 3:30 instead of 4:15.) It was a nice chance to have something to do while praying, and I found that the physical activity made the time go faster. But, unfortunately, walking was not a magical formula to make praying easier. My mind still wandered. It was still hard work to actually pray for the houses and cars that I passed.

But here is something that helped me stay focused: I found a passage from a Psalm that brought a mental image to mind to use in my prayers. For instance, yesterday I read Psalm 102:25 before setting out: "Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands." So for each house I walked past, I prayed that Jesus Christ would be the spiritual foundation (or cornerstone, also borrowing from Ephesians 2:20) of the people inside. It might seem agonizingly repetitive to use the same image for dozens of prayers, but I actually found it helpful to have one organizing idea. When praying for lots of people at once -- especially ones you don't know -- a central theme can keep you focused. Trying to come up with original prayers for each house would be really difficult, especially in neighborhoods where the homes are close together.

During my walks I also pray for the people in my congregations -- even the ones who don't live along the route that I walk. I have also told them when I do these walks so that they can join me in prayer too. I trust that God will work in our lives as a result of these Prayer Walks.

Here is a three-minute Youtube video from the Salvation Army about Prayer Walking as a way to intercede for people: