The Alabaster House - Footprints

“Your footprints may not be known. . .” (Psalm 77:19)

Sometimes God can be hard to track.

There are amazing accounts of skilled frontiersmen who knew how to look for “sign”, as it was called. Certain native American warriors were so skilled at tracking that it was nearly impossible to escape their pursuit. It was possible for some to look at footprints and describe the person - - - the “sign” they left told the sign-reader something of their size, weight, age, health; if they were in a hurry or escaping or if they were relaxed and taking their time; if they were injured or desperate.

An alert frontiersman who was not wanting to be found took special care to cover his tracks, literally sweeping over his tracks in the dust, removing all evidence of a camp-fire, restoring ground or grass where they slept, using streams to good advantage to hide an exit point and thus making a new secret path. One clever woodsman strapped elk hooves to his boots to fool the less experienced tracker!

God is not hard to track most of the time. His word makes clear the essentials regarding His nature and purpose. The way to eternal salvation is not difficult to figure out. Principles of wisdom are recorded and a general sense of the future is revealed.

But there are times when His footprints end at a stream and we cannot find where they pick-up on the other side. We begin a search and end-up perplexed. We long for the Shepherd’s voice to provide direction and end up finding the silence to be as pronounced as thunder. We may even cling to promises in the Scripture and wonder why our prayers seem to take so long to be answered.

There are times when God’s ways are simply shrouded in mystery. It seems at these junctures in life that His footprints may not be found.

This kind of trial is intentional from heaven’s point of view. The Lord is “proving” or exposing what is in the heart. Will we keep on tracking or will we give up? Will we allow anxiety to overwhelm us or will we learn to rest and trust Him all the more. Will we learn to cling to His Word when external evidence would point us another way?

The good news is that He does not keep us in such a state for a period longer than we can endure. But after all, endurance is the very thing He is after. “You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what has been promised” (Hebrews 10:36). Keep on tracking. He loves being searched for and found.

From John Elliott's Devotional - June 24th, 2011