Walk this Way

No, this is not a post about the song by Aerosmith that was later covered by RUN DMC (ft. Aerosmith).

It's about feet. And for that reason I feel compelled to start this post with a corny joke about the thrill of victory and the agony of de-feet; I hope you get a kick out of it.

In my prayer time lately, I have been slowly moving through the Gospel of Mark. One verse at a time. And today’s verse was Mark 5:22:

"One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him (Jesus) he fell at his feet…"

Over the last several years of my life I’ve learned about - and have been greatly blessed by - a way of praying called Lexio Divina in which we are encouraged (among other things) to “listen carefully for any words or phrases that seem to jump out” and today “feet” seemed to jump out at me. LOL.

I hope any eye rolling you’re doing right now will heel your weary sole.

But, seriously, feet have been on my mind lately. Not literally, though. That would stink.

As I thought about feet today in my prayer time, my mind was turned to this seriously beautiful song:

in which I find this lyric to be especially powerful: “Everything I am, everything I long to be, I lay it down at your feet.”

Surrender. It’s never easy to surrender everything to the Lord. But everything is always better when we do!

As I shared my thoughts about feet earlier today with my beautiful wife Lisa, she reminded me of this equally awesome song:

Which includes such powerful lyrics as:

Your sovereign hand / Will be my guide / Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me / You've never failed and You won't start now

and 

Let me walk upon the waters / Wherever You would call me / Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander / And my faith will be made stronger / In the presence of my Savior

Jesus really does ask us to walk upon the water - to do what we don't think we can do - and we can only do the seemingly impossible when we keep our eyes upon Him. But we also need to take the first step, which can be scary, as we see in this scene from a great cinema classic:

Today, I want to take a leap of faith and try to follow in the Lord’s footsteps, wherever He may lead me, and I hope you do, too. Speaking of footsteps, here’s a classic poem that I think describes all of our lives. 

Footprints

One night I had a dream…

I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord, and across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; One belonged to me, and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of my life flashed before us, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that many times along the path of my life, There was only one set of footprints.

I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in my life. This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it. “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, You would walk with me all the way; but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints.I don’t understand why in times when I needed you the most, you should leave me.

The Lord replied, “My precious, precious child. I love you, and I would never, never leave you during your times of trial and suffering. When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

Amen.

When we remember that He is always with us, we are graced with the courage to walk this way.