The (God) Tracker

Your way went through the sea, and Your path through the great waters, but Your footprints were unseen. – Psalm 77:19

There is a Way before us. We have wandered far and sought diligently for a way that would lead us to home and peace. Perhaps we had almost given up hope when the path appeared right at our feet – almost as if it had been there all along, but we saw it not.

The Psalmist is using one of the common themes in so many of these songs. He references the crossing of the Red Sea. He tells us something by revelation we could have known no other way. Though a way through the sea opened, God left no footprints. Though He created a path, there were no signs He trod it.

How could that happen? The materialist says the reason God does not leave footprints is that God does not exist. That might be one explanation – except that we know ways get made, about as often as maids get weighed. We know that God leads us and guides us. We have seen the works of God, the miracles in our own lives, so you’ve arrived just a little late to tell us that God does not exist. Maybe if you had showed up yesterday with your charts and graphs and equations, maybe then we would have given your conjecture a little thought. Today is too late. My name is Lazarus.

Meanwhile, how can you break a trail without leaving footprints? God is not “of” this cosmos. When He does step into it, He does not operate within the ordinary confines of human thought. He takes the ocean of impossibility and breaks it in two. He doesn’t just mix the metaphor that is the natural life; He drops it in the blender. He creates a spiritual wormhole in the physical continuum. The Real abruptly intrudes upon the derived.

The Way is.

Jesus said, “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

God does not just make a way; He is the Way. He is not the pathfinder; He is the Path. He does not just open the door: He is the Door.

But wait, there's more. You not only get the Person of Christ and the deliverance of salvation, as an added bonus, you get hope and peace in your everyday life. Free!

Because God is big, is the Way, then, always big? Is it always the Door, or are there doors? Christ does the big thing of salvation, deliverance and eternal life for us. Yet He cares for us as we walk through this world. All the little paths that we find in our lives, all the doors that open are Christ – in miniature, we might say – but just as real as the narrow way that leads to real life.

There is no "CSI: Heaven". God does not leave fingerprints. If we want to ignore His presence in our lives, He will allow us to do that. We can use our free will to chase ghost lights through the shadowed wilderness. But, if, stumbling, weary, and empty, we stop and call out to Him, it does not matter how deep into the forest we have gone or how far we have strayed, He will be right there. The path will appear at our feet, though it may be a little faint at first, and we will hear a voice behind us, saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it.”