Walking with the Lord (badly)

I've been contemplating Genesis, and thinking about the patriarchs' lives. It seems like everyone in Genesis has some serious moral flaws, but Scripture speaks highly of them. And I realize this isn't new: many, many people have commented on it.

But as I've been mulling this over, a thought occurred to me: perhaps we can take from Genesis that walking with the Lord, badly, is still walking with the Lord.

One of my daughters said a few years ago, "Faith without works is dead (James 2:17), but it's still faith."

Or as brother SAP said, "Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). We are justified by faith without works (Romans 4:5). Therefore, dead faith justifies." He said it, not me!

So I'll join in with, "Walking with the Lord badly is still walking with the Lord." 

Now, I know that I'll be accused of saying that it's OK to sin. Nope, it's not OK to sin, and that's not what I'm saying.

There's an old saying that "anything worth doing is worth doing well."  

There's another old saying that "anything worth doing is worth doing badly." 

The first means, don't give half effort and half attention to your work. The second means, don't wait until you're an expert to do something. It's better to work hard and do a less-than-perfect job than it is to not try at all.

Well, I think Genesis gives me license to say something similar about walking with the Lord: without making any excuses for sin, let's not wait until we're spiritual giants to walk with the Lord. Let's do it now – with all our failures and shortcomings and blindnesses and faults – because walking with the Lord is better than anything else we could be doing, even if we do it badly.