God’s footprints

The psalmist wrote, “Your path led through…mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen” (v. 19 NIV). When you can’t see God’s “footprints,” He is calling you to walk by faith, not by sight (see 2 Corinthians 5:7). Joni Eareckson Tada wrote, “A few months from now, I’ll mark an anniversary that is a heartbreaking story of loss and an incomparable testimony of God’s faithfulness…I will have been in a wheelchair for 47 years…barely a heartbeat in history, and as nothing compared with eternity. But for a flesh-and-blood, earth-dwelling human being, 47 years is a long time. Anyone who suffers…[wants] assurance that somehow, someway, things will work out in the end. We want to know that God is at the centre of our suffering. In Romans 8 we have…that assurance: ‘For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose’ (v. 28 ESV). [God] is so supremely in charge of the world that everything touching our lives…is ordered in such a way that it serves our good. This is true whether we face cancer, broken relationships, job loss, bankruptcy…or even a broken neck at age 17. The strong hope of the believer is not that we will escape ‘bad things’…but that God will transform our hardships into an instrument of His mercy to do us good…Romans 8:29 reveals [our] sufferings are small and short…compared with the weight of glory they are accruing for [us] in heaven. So bear with heartbreak and hardship a bit longer. These things are expanding your soul’s capacity for joy, worship, and service in heaven.”