Who You Walk With

We've been walking one idea for the last three devos

Walking: Most of disc golf isn't throwing, it's walking. And walking is the Bible's favorite

picture of life with God.

Off Course: Everybody throws it into the woods eventually. The Shepherd doesn't wait at

the fairway — he comes into the weeds after you.

Pace: Jesus doesn't offer you the couch; he offers you a better pace. Most of us aren't tired

from walking; we’re tired from the speed we're walking at.

So: walking, getting found, pace. Today the last piece of that — who's walking next to you.

Here's the thing about a brand new course.

None of you know it. There are no local lines yet. Nobody's got the "I always throw a hyzer

here “advantage, because there is no always yet. You walk up to a hole today and have

absolutely no idea how much room there is between the basket and the road.

And when that happens — when you genuinely don't know the line — what do you do?

You look at whoever's standing next to you.

You ask. You watch somebody else throw first. You take the read from the guy who

happened to walk it last week. That's not weakness, that's just how anybody learns a

course. Nobody figures out an unknown course alone. You figure it out with your card.

You will learn this course exactly as fast as the people you walk it with.

Hold onto that.

There's a passage in Ecclesiastes — an old, kind of blunt book about how life actually

works — that says this:

"Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either

falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift

him up. Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person

alone keep warm? And if someone overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord

of three strands is not easily broken."

— Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 (CSB)

And Proverbs puts the same truth from the other direction — a little sharper:

"The one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will

suffer harm."

— Proverbs 13:20 (CSB)

REFLECTION

Notice the verb in Proverbs. It's the same one we've been on all summer. Walks. Not

"agrees with the wise." Not "listens to a podcast by the wise." Walks with. Proximity over

time.

Which is a little uncomfortable, if you sit with it. Because it means you are, slowly and

mostly without noticing, becoming like the people you spend your hours beside.

Their pace becomes your pace.

Their standard becomes your standard.

What they laugh at, you start laughing at.

Nobody chooses that in a moment — it just accrues, one round at a time.

Some of you are in a season where you're carrying something and nobody around you

knows. Ecclesiastes doesn't say the one who falls is a failure. It says pity the one who falls

with nobody there to lift him up. The problem was never the fall. It was being alone for it.

Some of you have plenty of people around you but not one of them is walking you anywhere

good. That's worth being honest about. Don't be self-deceived about this. Take an honest

inventory of who is around you.

And some of you — this is the one I'd watch — have quietly decided that needing people is

a weakness you outgrew. I'd push back. Independence feels like strength right up until the

round you actually need somebody.

Here's the part I keep coming back to. After the resurrection, when Jesus wants to explain

everything to two heartbroken, confused disciples — he doesn't sit them down. He doesn't

hand them a book. He shows up on the road to Emmaus and walks seven miles with them

(Luke 24). The whole conversation happens in motion, shoulder to shoulder, over a couple

of hours of ordinary walking. They don't even recognize him for most of it.

That's the pattern. God's most-used delivery method for himself has always been a

person walking beside you. And for some of you, God wants to use you — and it will be at

the most inconvenient time.

We don’t play disc golf is a spiritual discipline. We play because eighteen holes is an hour

or two of walking with somebody, and an hour or two of walking with somebody is where

actual life gets talked about. You can't do this from a pew. The conversation you have on

hole 11 today is the point. The disc golf is the excuse.

So here's the question:

Who are you becoming, based on who you're walking with?

And the harder one: who is becoming something because you're walking with them?

Three things to carry into the round — and today the first one is a real assignment.

1. Don't play with your usual card. Go throw with somebody you don't know. That’s

the whole devotional, honestly — the rest is commentary.

2. When you don't know the line, ask. Out loud. Let it be a small rehearsal for the

bigger thing, because most of us are a lot better at pretending we know the line in

life than we are at asking.

3. If you're walking alone right now — not on the course, in your life Showing up

repeatedly next to the same people is the thing. That's how accord of three strands

gets made. Slowly, and by walking.

Father, thank you for this ground. Thank you that we get to walk it together for the first time

today. Give us the honesty to ask when we don't know the line, and the eyes to see who

you've put beside us. Make us the kind of people worth walking with. Walk the whole

eighteen with us, and help us notice you in the in-between. In Jesus' name, amen.

Brandon Kinsey- PDGA # 298262

Discin’ Disciples Chapter Leader: Michiana