Footprints in the Snow

I had the privilege of spending two days in the mountains near Ruidoso, NM last week. It snowed my last night there leaving a blanket of fresh snow on the ground. After an early morning of reading I bundled up and went out for a prayer walk. My primary purpose was to hear God speak. I am not sure how far I trudged, at times, stepping ever so gingerly onto the iced over roads not wanting to fall.

I walked and prayed and enjoyed my time but did not feel I heard the Lord give any clear message. I finally made a u-turn and headed back to the house some church members graciously allowed me to stay in with our youth minister for some time to pray and seek God’s counsel. On the way back I began noticing my footprints.

That sent my mind wandering. By the time I started back toward the house the temperature was already rising and much of the snow was beginning to melt. It dawned in my mind that by the end of the day most if not all my footprints would melt and disappear. There would be no visible record that I had ever walked that way.

This made me start contemplating life in general. I do not want to live out my days and leave footprints from my time here that only melt in the heat of the day. I want footprints that leave a lasting impression. I want the weight and imprint of my life to be deeper and have more impact than footprints in the melting snow.

So what does that really mean? It means I have to live my life on purpose and with intention. Nobody is going to do that for me. If I want to squander my days and barely touch the life of people then when I am gone I will be easily forgotten. The sermons I preach are mostly forgotten two or three days after I preached them. The Bible studies I teach are much the same way.

I have a limited number of days with Brenda, Taylor, Tanner, Tucker, and Turner. I have this one life (however much or little I have left) to impact them and to touch them at the soul level. Yesterday, Turner drew me a picture. There is a rough drawing of a man and a boy hugging each other with hearts all around. He wrote the words, “I love you, from Turner on them.” He left another paper for me last night that says, “Things to do in 2010. Don’t lose your temper. Have a quiet time. Lisin to your hart. Obey your perints. I love you, from Turner.” I often call him my Velcro and Christmas ornament because he is so attached to me. He always wants to sit next to me when we eat, sit in my lap when I am seated in my recliner. He is the first to run to hug me when I get home. I want to leave deep footprints on his heart and life along with his older brothers.

One of the ways I hope to leave footprints in spiritual cement rather than melting snow is to keep writing. Through these articles, blogs, and the books I write, I want the message God stirs in me to continue. I want to live a life of impact. When I write God can use it in far more places than I can actually travel. Today as I write this there have been 6,566 hits to the No Compromise blog. I have not had the chance to minister in person to 6,500 people. Writing helps me to expand the impact God allows me to have on others. Eventually my life will come to end but the messages of God through this vessel in written form can live long after my life is gone.

I am right now being blessed by an author who has been dead for several decades named Andrew Murray. God used him mightily to preach and write about prayer. It has been both challenging and insightful to read his books. God used men like A.W. Tozer, Jonathan Edwards, Leonard Ravenhill, Vance Havner, Bill Bright, Hudson Taylor, and George Mueller not only in the way they lived but what they wrote as well. Each of these men left lasting footprints. Though each of them is now dead and gone they continue to live through the printed page.

I covet your prayers as I continue to labor in writing. I feel the Lord has called me to devote more of myself to that ministry this year than ever before. So with the article I write for the Paradise paper, the blogs, and my books I continue to seek to leave deeper footprints in the sands of time. I just finished a book entitled Running Toward Risk. Now begins the grueling editing process. I am revising and expanding a book I wrote back in 2002 entitled Only Believe. I need to edit a book, which I compiled last year. It is a collection of articles and blogs I have written over the past three years called Sitting with the Savior. I am also prepared to release a book I wrote in Paradise for devotions titled 40 Days to Trust and Obey. There are several dozen other titles and ideas swirling around in my heart and mind. I have to be the one to sit down and slow down long enough to lasso those thoughts and corral them onto to the printed page.

As you ponder your life and the footprints you are leaving behind will they last or be washed away in the melting snow? Is your life impacting the lives of others or are you wrapped up in self absorption? You may not write books but you can leave deep footprints in the sands of times in other ways. You can love deeply, give sacrificially, invest yourself in others, listen intently to other’s pain, and intercede for those who are struggling.

As I write this I am back in Seminole seated at my mahogany desk typing away. By now my footprints left in Ruidoso are completely gone. Nobody will know I tread that path there less than a week ago. My imprint and impact are null and void in that little neighborhood I spent two days in. Here in my home and Seminole and through my ministry of writing I hope and pray I am having a much greater impact on the lives of others. I urge you to contemplate how you live. Resolve to leave deep footprints in the sands of 2010 and beyond.