footprints in the sand
- samuel stringer
- Aug 23, 2020
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 26, 2022
They're both sand, but they are worlds apart.
One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."
He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you."
Life is difficult. We need help. We look to people for understanding and advice. To imagine that Christ is with us, or that our Heavenly Father is caring for us as a father, or that guardian angels look over us in our sleep—it's a comforting thought.
The idea of our Lord carrying us through the rough parts of life is a warmth. A strength.
But we're not six, are we? We're adults. We're not supposed to be carried. Our job is to be the adult, the parent, the ones who carry. When my son turned 18 he was very tall (6 foot 5) and strong. He didn't look like a teenager. He looked like a man and people were treating him that way. I told him: there will always be that little boy in you who needs to be looked after. You'll want people to do that. They won't. You're a man. That's your job now. You need to look after that little boy.
The poem might have its beginnings in the Bible, from this passage about God caring for his people in the wilderness.
Deut 1.30-31
The Lord your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as one carries a child, all the way that you traveled until you reached this place.
Sounds like the same thing, right? Maybe yes; maybe no. Yes, God carried them, but they didn't want to be carried there.
Deut 1.32-33
But in spite of this, you have no trust in the Lord your God, who goes before you on the way to seek out a place for you to camp, in fire by night, and in the cloud by day, to show you the route you should take.
They didn't see his help as an assurance that he was with them in times of difficulty, but rather as a debt they were owed for having been taken out of Egypt.
Deut. 1.34-40
When the Lord heard your words, he was wrathful and swore: “Not one of these—not one of this evil generation—shall see the good land that I swore to give to your ancestors, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his descendants I will give the land on which he set foot, because of his complete fidelity to the Lord.” Even with me the Lord was angry on your account, saying, “You also shall not enter there. Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, shall enter there; encourage him, for he is the one who will secure Israel’s possession of it. And as for your little ones, who you thought would become booty, your children, who today do not yet know right from wrong, they shall enter there; to them I will give it, and they shall take possession of it. But as for you, journey back into the wilderness, in the direction of the Red Sea.”
And so God left them there. Because they weren't six; they were adults. They had been rescued from slavery and were on their way to the Promised Land—the land of Abraham—where they would have their own land and homes. God would be their king and he would wipe away all their tears.
Wrong. There were no mansions waiting, he was not going to tuck them into bed at night and send his angels to guard them as they slept the slumber of babes.
Their children? Yes: he would do it for them. He would let them be children, and it is his joy to take care of them. But treating adults as children? Never.
(This should be a warning to those who use our children as a shield against God. We say we would do it, except our children are too small. We would do it, but it is risky "out there". Even if we were willing to endure the hardship ourselves, we cannot do that to our children. We tell this lie to God. The Father of the Fatherless, El Shaddai, the Alpha and Omega, our Rock, our Righteousness, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Lion of Judah, our Redeemer, Everlasting Father: it is to him that we say we would obey, but we cannot trust you with our children.)
God carried them in the wilderness because he took them there! He a reasonable God. If he takes us someplace risky, he gives himself the responsibility of getting us through. But it is not his responsibility to carry us through a place of he never took us! The valley of the shadow of death is not some bad place we have strayed into. It's the bad place God took us. He will get us out. It's expected that we will look at the dark walls of that valley and be afraid of the shapes out there is the darkness. That's okay. What's not okay is coming to the mouth of the valley and refusing to go in. It's allowed to be afraid; it is not allowed to say no. If the shepherd goes in (and he will), the sheep must follow. The shepherd does not turn around because some sheep look at the darkness, say no, and go back to their pasture.
The shepherd leads the sheep through the valley because that is the path (the only path) to the next grazing fields. It is not just the his sheep know his voice; it's also that they must follow. It is not the job of the shepherd to stand on the hillside smiling over his sheep. It is the job of the shepherd to take them where they must go. The sheep don't know where they're going, but the shepherd does, and it is the job of the sheep to be sheep. Sheep follow. That's their role in life. They never lead. They never decide for themselves. Yes, I'll say it: sheep are stupid. Their only hope for survival is the shepherd, who knows what's inside that valley of the shadow of death, and what is at the other end.
The truth is: We don’t want to follow Christ: we want him to follow us. We want him to let us do what we want and then rescue us when it turns out badly. We want to choose our valleys and we want to be protected even though those valleys are not the valley. We want our lives, our plans, our dreams. We want God to make our dreams come true. And we want the Shepherd there with us, smiling down upon us from the hillside as we graze and rest in fields of greenest grass, adorned with white and yellow wild flowers, shaded by trees, a blue quiet lake in the background, and puffy white clouds hanging in the clear blue sky with not a hint of rain on the horizon.
You think it's about you. You think God carries you through the valley of the shadow of death and prepares green pastures for your enjoyment, and then carries you away to a place of eternal rest where there is no more pain and no more suffering: because you deserve it, having suffered so much in this life.
You truly believe God exists to take care of you. You pray to ask him to give you what you want, and to give you success in the things you want to do. Never do you ask him what he wants from you. Your pastor takes prayer requests and they all are about our problems and our plans. You repeat the Lord's Prayer every Sunday, and not once does it cross your mind that Christ taught us to pray from heaven to earth, not from earth to heaven: Your kingdom come! Your will be done!
There is only one set of footprints in the sand. Yours. In the wilderness, there are two, and sometimes one, if he has put us in a place that is beyond our strength.
But if your testings are those that are common to man (and they are, aren't they?) then no: you're on your own. Christ will not hold your hand as you walk away from him. He will not carry you where you want to go. He's in the wilderness; you're on the beach. Yes, they're both sand, but they are world's apart.
#Deut_1.30-40 the Lord your God carried you, just as one carries a child
#Matt_6.9-13 #the_Lords_Prayer
#1_Cor_10.13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone
Comments