Most people have encountered, at one time or another, an inspirational piece called Footprints in the Sand.
It describes a man who dreams that he is confronting God because he sees two sets of footprints when he looks back over his life – his prints and God’s prints – and is alarmed to discover that there is only one set of prints during the darkest chapters of his life.
“That’s when I carried you,” God assures him. It’s an encouraging notion.
Then there’s the piece that Anita Renfroe rolled out a couple of years ago in her satirical book The Purse-Driven Life:
One night I had a wondrous dream, one set of footprints there was seen
The footprints of my precious Lord, but mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared, and I asked the Lord, “What have we here?
Those prints are large and round and neat, but Lord, they are too big for feet.”
“My child,” he said in somber tones, “for miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith, but you refused and made me wait.
“You disobeyed, you would not grow, the walk of faith you would not know.
So I got tired and got fed up, and there I dropped you on your butt.
“Because in life there comes a time when one must fight and one must climb.
When one must rise and take a stand, or leave their buttprints in the sand.”
Needless to say, Buttprints in the Sand hasn’t yet caught on in gift stores.
Does God really drop us, kerplunk, when he gets tired of carrying us?
In Genesis 6:3, God says, “My Spirit will not contend with people forever.” In other words, there are limits to God’s patient endurance.
It’s worth noting that one chapter later the raindrops of Noah’s Flood begin to fall. In the words of the Old Testament prophets (Hosea and Jeremiah in particular), God portrays himself as a betrayed spouse who is not above screaming and throwing crockery in an exasperated rage.
That’s how frustrated God can become when his people spiritually or emotionally check out of their relationship with him.
Nevertheless, a rainbow and a promise follow the Flood. And raging spouses, miraculously, might still open their arms to welcome back their broken, faithless partners. And Jesus died saying, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t have a clue what they are doing.”
Without doubt, God can get his back up when we refuse to go forward spiritually.
Parents have little interest in carrying their children to school when they have strong and healthy legs that need exercise.
But if you find yourself feeling forsaken, ingloriously sitting there in the sand, you can know that any initiative you take to re-engage God’s presence in your life will be greeted with divine enthusiasm.
“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4).
When it comes to those who abandon their hearts to God, in other words, life turns out to be a beach after all.
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