Faith Leaves a Thousand Footprints

Meditations on Genesis #30

Genesis 12:4a

So Abram went, as the LORD had told him...

Thirty-eight years ago, my parents traveled with me and my seven-month-old twin brother in tote all the way from Dallas, Texas to the then-rural town of Cary, North Carolina to start a church. Even though my dad and mom hadn’t made the long trek in a covered wagon, with dangers and perils surrounding their every advance, the endeavor to start a brand-new church in a brand-new place, especially in light of the fact that they had zero connections in Cary and very little money, was still very much a pioneering mission. Like Abram and Sarai of old, my parents went, as the LORD had told them, and they’re still here, thirty-eight years later, taking fresh steps and breaking new ground.

I’ll never forget the challenge my dad made while officiating my wedding on the edge of the Grand Canyon. He said, “Seth and Megan, you can’t stay where it’s safe and level—God is calling you into the canyon.” That’s the most moving kind of message, because it moves us to action. You can’t just hum along to a commission like that, or whisper a Southern Baptist sort of ‘amen, preach it brother!’, while staying in your comfy pew. Oh no, the amen required isn’t a word but a motion. It’s one foot following another into the difficult and unknown frontier of God’s commission. Perhaps today what Almighty God wants to hear most from us is the sound of crunching leaves under our hiking boots or the bolting of a door behind us or the hum of a car engine ready for a long trip cross country. A thousand nods of our head and ‘mmhhhmms’ under our breath are just clanging cymbals and empty sounds if they aren’t accompanied by the rhythm of our footsteps.

Friend, take a minute today to look back over the terrain of your own life of faith and thank God for the pioneers who’ve made your path a bit simpler. Think of the books that God has used to broaden your perspective, and the local churches where you’ve grown exponentially, and those who baptized you and led you in communion and invited you into their homes for life-on-life mentorship. Think of the countless volunteers who led your summer camps, and the cooks who provided meals for the potlucks, and the behind-the-scenes servants who set up chairs, and the babysitters who served in the nursery, and the volunteers who sang in the choir so that you’d have more undistracted fellowship with Almighty God. Think of all the scribes and monks and linguists and even martyrs who toiled to translate the precious scriptures into your language so that you could read them for yourself. Think of the counselors and teammates and friends who walked alongside you during those dark days of addiction or depression or agnosticism, sacrificing time and money and energy to pray and fast on your behalf. But, most of all, think of Christ, our greatest Pioneer, Who prayed in the agonizing silence of His Gethsemane, before baptizing the world in a flood of redeeming blood, “Father, not My will but Yours be done!” and confirmed that prayer by standing up to His feet, turning to face the shadowy travail head on, and taking that decisive step forward.

Likewise, when you’re done pondering the pioneering work of previous generations, I encourage you to get up and take that next critical step for yourself. And remember: your footprints are blazing a trail for future generations.

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*My wife took this photograph a few years ago on our trip to Whitetop Mountain (a mountain you’re probably sick of hearing me talking about by now), and I particularly love the forward motion depicted in this scene as well as the perspective of the background. Most images of a pilgrim walking on a path are taken from the back, from behind the pilgrim, with a view over the shoulder at the unknown path ahead; but this particular meditation is instead a reflection on hindsight, on the beauty of the terrain that lies behind the saint in his forward advance, and of the path beneath his feet that was blazed and preserved by predecessors. To be honest, I don’t even know which pioneer or preservationist hauled thousands of stones to create the trail you see in the distance, but there’s no question his travail was more difficult than mine. In fact, I can only bring my precious kids up to this mountain peak, 5,280 feet up in the air, because someone toiled to cut down trees, and someone else dug a long winding road, and someone else covered it with gravel, and someone else paved a trail, and someone else preserved those roads and trails year after year. But all such trails start out in exactly the same manner: as a set of footprints from one pioneer, followed by others, till inaccessible mountain peaks become picnicking spots for families, and dangerous heights become a playground for children and the childlike.