Footprints Unseen

I SHALL ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL to the gadget people in my family who invested in the cutting-edge technology available in my first five years. Super-8 home movies in living color. It’s wonderful to see loved ones from the past in motion—looking quite dashing in their twenties—young. Mom and Dad were all smiles and laughter.

I know parts of their stories the camera never saw, from my earliest memories until they passed. It wasn’t all fun. With God's help, they endured storms along the way that shook their lives, but they never burdened us kids with their troubles. Looking back through the lens focused with age and maturity, I can see the unseen. God was there directing the paths of their lives. He was there in the storms and the good times.

In my twenties, I began to experience times when everything seemed to be going my way, followed by seasons when nothing seemed to work out right. I made mistakes in my sea of activities and relationships; I sometimes left a wake in others' lives.

Most of the time, I did things right, and it showed. It still shows. I am often contacted by members of my youth group who offer me sweet and kind words about my time with them in the past. At this point it's been almost fifty years since that chapter in our lives. Yes, but sometimes I did the right things, and somehow they were taken wrongly. I was appalled at how cruel people, "church people," could behave.

In one such tempestuous season, near the end of my tenure as a youth minister, I remember clinging to Psalm 77 while rocking in my sinking boat. Asaph’s words contained just the right mixture of anger, hurt, misery, confusion, and awe for me as I appealed to God through tears for solutions. Yet no answers came, though I begged for them.

God is sovereign, wise, and always working in my best interest. But there came decades after that when one personal storm after another engulfed me. I wondered if God had forgotten me. I was inexperienced and weak in faith, even though I had spent so much time in the scriptures and worship. But Asaph schools us all about storms in Psalm 77. What a curious way to show love, I thought as I read it. I had to learn answers to questions I had never entertained, like:

"Is it the amount of my faith that matters or what, or in whom I place my faith?"

If you have not watched The Chosen, I recommend it as a supplement to Bible study. I pray for that project. There is something special about the way they tell the stories. Know this, Bothers and Sisters, The Holy Spirit is not to be limited in the way He instructs us.

At the end of season three, the episode begins with a reading of Psalm 77, returns to it in the middle of the show, and concludes with that Psalm in a breathtaking way. As you might imagine, I was captivated from beginning to end.

After all these years, pieces of a living puzzle, perplexing and strange life events I'd been trying to understand all my life, began to form a clear picture. Sometimes, God uses storms of life not to cause fear or to dishearten us but to clear the rubble in our minds so we may recognize his perfect ways, power, and control . . . what I refer to as his curious character. He instructs us to remain calm and vigilant in the tumult—"Don't be afraid"—and to keep our eyes on Him instead of the chaos.

I don't know of anyone who enjoys the furious storms of life, but I have more experience with them now. I recall Jesus' obvious command over chaos when he walked on water to the sinking boat his disciples were in. Even when they knew it was him coming their way, they still feared they would drown. "Muzzle it!" he shouted as he climbed into the boat with them—soaking wet as they were. And the storm obeyed immediately!

If I trust God, I discover that when the storm is over, I find I have arrived at a rapturous new place I never imagined I wanted to be. Goodness and Mercy will have pursued me and overtaken me. The Lord of the now is also Lord of the future. All of God's children believe that. But it is oft so difficult to grasp that he is Lord and Master of the past! The past, My past, and Your past. Yes, he is there. He is able to go there at will to redeem all who trust him.

Periodically I take a moment to remember how quickly the fierce storm around Jesus developed upon his arrest, torture, "trial," and death and how hopeless the situation looked late Friday afternoon. Sunday came, and everything changed forever. Go easy on his disciples. We are not so different. We forget. We reason that God delivered us from the last situation, but what about next time? Watching this last episode, I received the answers I had sought for fifty years. It truly was my year of Jubilee. I was free at last.

God knows paths to deliverance from impossible situations that no one else knows anything about. He saves us perfectly. Yet, to our human eyes, he leaves no definitive proof that the resolution was anything but coincidence. And, I choose to stay as close to him as I can.

Asaph wrote these words hundreds of years before Jesus lived them, and says we should think about what our Father did in our past and know He has always and will forever love us more than we could ever imagine. God's Way is not our way, but it is awesome, and always achieves His holy Purpose. And now we know why the storms rage.

Hint: as God approaches, the elements, seen and unseen, demonstrate their fear of Him and "tremble" in their own way. I can tell you after many storms: God's "footprint" is so obvious to me now. Consider this snippet from the Psalm:

“I will recall the many miracles you did for me so long ago. Those wonderful deeds are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them.

“Oh God, your ways are holy. Where is there any other as mighty as you? You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power.

“When the waters saw you, Oh God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. They trembled to the depths! The clouds poured down their rain, and the thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Your lightning flashed. There was thunder in the whirlwind; your arrows lighted up the world! The earth trembled and shook.

“Your road led by a pathway in the sea— a path no one knew was there!

“Yet your footprints were unseen.”

Copyright April 2023, edited September 2025; Gary Landerfelt, MyPericope.com