Ron's Insights 2013

God's Footprints 

. . .Yet your footprints were unseen

Psalm 77:19

      Why should God reveal His footprints if we refuse to see His handiwork?

      God has chosen to reveal Himself to people of faith while hiding Himself from those who refuse to believe. To say, Show me, then I'll believe, is futile. God has already revealed Himself as fully as He ever will, at least in this lifetime. He makes clear His revelation to the person who says, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."

      It was God who parted the Red Sea, making way for Israel's escape while drowning the pursuing army that was ordered to destroy her. All Egypt heard about the miracle. Word spread throughout the pagan world. And Israel was in the middle of the miracle, passing through two walls of water on dry ground.

      Did the world respond by turning to the true and living God? No. They dug in their heels to resist God's purpose for Israel while crying out to lifeless gods. Did Israel learn to believe God through the hardships in the desert? No. Because of unbelief, the generation that saw the Red Sea miracle died and their bones rotted in the wilderness.

      How could this possibly have happened? Why didn't the entire world turn to God? First, while belief may produce a miracle, miracles rarely produce belief. Why is this so? Because unbelief was deeply imbedded into mankind's heart at the fall, mankind has sought powerless, lifeless gods ever since. Worse still, he reduces God while exalting himself.

      This baseless form of faith in the satanic lie ("You shall be as God . . ." ¹) is at the foundation of all unbelief in the true and living God. Some scientists press hard to develop a naturalistic explanation for creation. Many paleontologists crawl through dusty digs to find the meaning of man in the shards of bone and pottery of the dead. Some philosophers invent hair-brain theories for the meaning of life. This all comes from the willful choice to not believe.

      So, then, why should God reveal the footprints of His presence when He delivers from danger, when He blesses all humanity, when He upholds the poor, when He produces abundant crops to give nourishment to all?

      If your heart does not rejoice in the Lord when the sun rises on time every morning, if deliverance from famine does not drive you to worship, if rising from a sickbed does not produce loyalty to God, if the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ does not flood you with hope and thanksgiving, then, why should God show His footprints?

      The person of faith, on the other hand, who lives in ever-present wonderment of God's handiwork, will see His footprints all around. And alongside of God's footprints he sees his own, as he or she walks hand-in-hand with God.

  Immanuel: God is with you!
Your friend.
Ron. 

¹