“When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4
When our grands were little, faceprints, handprints, and kisses frequently decorated the glass sliding doors in our dining room.
Those precious prints on the glass were often complimented by peanut butter smears and random sticky patches of jelly and syrup on any number of kitchen and dining surfaces. I had no hesitancy about cleaning up the sticky stuff, but I found it much more difficult to wipe the glass doors clean.
Those prints on the glass doors were evidence of happy, playful times filled with silly games, late-night stories, and pancake breakfasts, accompanied by snuggles, hugs, and kisses from my grands.
The size of a handprint or the height of a kiss print almost always revealed the identity of the one who left the print behind.
Those little prints were wonderful reminders throughout the week of the “littles” who had spent Friday night with Mimi and Grandpa. Usually, by Thursday, I’d clean the glass so that when the grands arrived on Friday, they’d have a clean canvas for their “printworks.”
Oh, the sweet memories that fill the treasure chest of my mind.
The sturdy sliding glass doors have now been replaced with glass-impaneled French doors. Infrequent smudges from an adult hand leaning in to watch the birds at the feeder or to open the door to step out on the patio give proof that life moves forward even when the “littles” are no longer small.
In Sunday’s sermon, our pastor referred to a phrase he’d once heard “dusting for God’s prints.” I liked that phrase and the idea behind it. That little phrase has played in my mind since then.
It took me back to that sweet phase of life when my grands left behind visible reminders that they had been with us. With me, one thought always leads to another. And that thought leapfrogged my thoughts to a time when I was going through a spiritual rough patch.
During that time, I became overly introspective, trying to find a remedy for my spiritual malaise in and of my own strength. I poured over Scripture, looking for solutions and attempting to apply everything I read to my situation.
Finally, God broke through the noises that filled my head. The Holy Spirit showed me that I need to readjust my focus. My eyes needed to be taken off me and turned towards God.
I needed to step back and take a fresh look at my situation. Instead of looking for all the things that I thought God should be doing in my life and wasn’t, I needed to look at all that God was doing.
Instead of whining about what wasn’t happening that I thought should be – I needed to recognize how God was working in my situation and me. I needed to focus on what He was doing. I needed to thank God and praise Him for His active involvement in my life.
That meant I had to become very intentional in identifying God’s fingerprints in my life. And I began to look.
Each morning before praying, I sat pen in hand, blank pages before me, reflecting on the previous 24 hours – looking for God’s prints on all that had occurred. At first, I struggled to identify one, maybe two, instances where a fuzzy imprint of God’s presence seemed likely.
I learned three lessons during that season, here are the first two:
- When I committed to take a few minutes each morning to write down what God had done in my life on the previous day, I became more intentional, diligent, and alert to the goings on throughout every day. I was and am more aware of God’s presence.
- As I began to recognize God’s fingerprints across my life, the more I saw. Things previously overlooked – seemingly small and unimportant things became apparent and spoke to me of God’s caring touches throughout my day.
It’s easy to agree with the big-picture concept that God is everywhere, that He is over all, and that He is in all. Even if we don’t fully understand how that works, we agree that it is so.
But sometimes it is much more difficult to see how God is personally involved in your own life – to recognize how He is working in you and your situation. And it is especially difficult when His work does not line up with your expectations.
Here’s the third lesson that I learned:
- If I want to see God’s fingerprints across my life, I must turn loose of my expectations of how God will act in my life – otherwise, I will miss what He is doing.
Even as I type those words, they sound incredibly, ridiculously arrogant…because they are!
How dare I set expectations for God Almighty, Creator of All, King of Kings, and LORD of Lords. But I suspect that I’m not the only one who has fallen into that deadly trap.
God is the Master; I am the servant. He is the Father; I am the child. He is the Good Shepherd; I am His lamb.
God makes the rules. God sets the standards. God creates the plan. God has set His redemptive design for all creation into motion. He is sustaining it and upholding all things, with His powerful and mighty arm until He brings that plan to its dramatic conclusion, at which time, He will usher in the New Heavens and New Earth.
Now and forever, it is my job to bow to Him in reverence, love Him wholeheartedly, and serve Him in faithful obedience.
Once I surrendered my stressed heart and controlling mind to my Heavenly Father, I could begin to focus on all that God was and is doing in me and my situation. I found praise came more readily, and my spirit became eager to see more of God’s activity.
I continue to learn that the less I stare inward, the clearer my vision becomes Godward, and the easier it is to recognize God’s fingerprints on my life.
God’s prints have become unmistakable in the same ways that I came to recognize and cherish each grandchild’s hand, finger, and kiss prints on the glass doors. The closer I walk with Him, the better I know His character, the more deeply I love Him and surrender my heart to Him, the easier it has become to see and recognize the many prints He is making in me and my life.
Friend, do you recognize and take note of the many God prints that mark your life?
I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me….
Ezra 7:28 ESV
My Prayer:
Father God, I pray that You will open my eyes, my heart, and my mind to You. Forgive me when I pray expecting You to answer in the way that I think best. Help me to set aside my empty expectations, so that I can take delight in what it is that You have planned for me. Open the eyes of my heart so that I might see the many ways that You direct my steps, light my way, guard my spirit, and protect me from the evil one.
You alone are God. You alone are worthy of all praise and glory.
May I honor You, Lord, in all that I say and do. Let me see You, Father, more clearly each day.
I pray this in the blessed names of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen and Amen.
The hand of our God is for good on all who seek Him….
Ezra 8:22 ESV