The best way to know God
I have long found that walking was a positive thing for me. The exercise is good for me. I feel better after long walks, physically, mentally and emotionally. I walked three miles per day for many years in Donalsonville, but when Covid hit soon after our move to Auburn, I upped my daily milage to five miles a day, more or less.
During Covid the University was shut down so it was like walking in a deserted town. I made a list of every building on campus and visited them all, finding some located in parts of campus I had never visited even as a student.
I learned to find the routes that had the most shade and the least hills. I discovered what time of day I had to walk to avoid the humidity in the Summer and the chilly mornings in the Winter.
Perhaps the greatest discovery for me was the combination of audio books and walking. I cannot listen to a book in my chair, or I will soon be napping. But listening to a book while walking is a perfect combination. If I am in the middle of a good book, I find myself starting earlier, pacing faster, walking longer, and often pushing myself around an extra block or two just to get to the end of another chapter.
Unrelated to our walks, Mary Lou and I have been attending a class at Auburn United Methodist Church on Moses, the Reluctant Prophet. The six-week course was perfect for us as we had just been to Egypt and visited many of the places that Moses lived and studied during his time there.
Coincidentally, I was listening to a book by one of my favorite authors, Fredrick Backman. My Friends was published in 2025 and was a perfect book for walking. My pace picked up almost a full minute per mile, I did not miss a single day of walking, and my mileage was greater than average by a full two miles.
Not wanting to give away any of the plot, I will just reference two sections that caught my attention. One character quoted his mother having said the greatest invention of all time was the pockets on a boy’s jeans. I have to admit that I cannot imagine life without pockets, though I never thought about it before.
I have mentioned before that my grandfather was once asked what was the greatest invention in his long life. Without hesitation he mentioned the “mini-skirt”. If you had known him, you would know he was only half joking.
The other section in the book that really caught my attention was when a new friend asked another, who had lived a difficult life, if they believed in God. I would have honestly expected his answer to be a resounding “NO”. I was wrong.
His reply was so perfect that I had to stop walking and put the quote into my phone. The weathered man said that he indeed believed in God. He then quoted Vincent Van Gogh, who once said “the best way to know God is to love many things”. Given the context of the book, it was a powerful statement.
Given my own walk of faith, my timing with the class on Moses, my reflection on my life in three great, but very different churches, and my own journey through life, I believe that to be true. I know God better because of the many things I love.
I could write a column on my favorite inventions. Even better, I could write a column on the things I love in life. But today, I will just write a column about an obscure phrase in an otherwise powerful book. The best way to know God is to love many things. The emphasis is on the word “many”. It is a path to follow during these challenging and complicated times.
o0o
Dan Ponder can be reached at [email protected]