One night, a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with God. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonged to him, and the other to God.
He noticed that at some point the double set of footprints had stopped. Looking closer he realized that was the most difficult part of his life. This bothered the man greatly and he asked God about it.
Man: Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d 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, when I needed you most, you would leave me. The latter half of my life I’ve been walking alone.
God: Sorry, where did you say that the double track of steps stopped?
Man: Well, there, see. You simply stopped walking along with me. And that was the hardest part of my life. Not that it got any better afterwards.
God (bends over to look closer): Ah, yes, that spot. Well, nothing changed on my side. It was you.
Man: What? You mean I stopped walking with you?
God: No, but that’s where you finally grew up.
Man: Grew up? I almost died there and you abandoned me.
God: No, I did not abandon you. I did not walk with you in the first place. That second pair of footsteps is basically imaginary.
Man: You’re telling me that you didn’t walk with me?
God: Sort of. You were on your own and kept yourself alive with an imaginary crutch, me as the great carrier. Once things really got tough, you had the choice of continuing using that crutch or wising up and take responsibility. I’m so glad you did.
Man (takes time to let this sink in): So… it was in my toughest time when I suffered the deepest pain that you abandoned me?
God: Nope, I did not abandon you. You opened your eyes and realized it was up to you to either face your sufferings or succumb to them.
Man: That’s sick. Why are we having this conversation?
God: I don’t know. You started it and I’m always up for a good convo.
Man: So, you are not with people in their suffering at all?
God: I didn’t say that. I’m not a crutch and also not someone who shields you from suffering.
Man: Then what are you good for?
God: Good question.
Man: I might as well not believe in you anymore.
God: Sure, I can handle that too.
Man: What do you mean with “too”
God: Since your species became aware of me, I’ve been called many things and many things have been done to me or to others in my name. Not believing in me is very insignificant compared to all that.
Man: What use is a God who cannot be with people in their suffering?
God: Suffering? Don’t talk to me about suffering. Suffering is my middle name.
Man: But you just told me I’ve been walking along the beach alone!
God: I am the beach and I am the water that fills the footprints. I am the longing that makes a man persevere as he walks alone. I am the suffering he experiences and the pain he endures.
Man: So you are saying you are suffering?
God: Kinda. A bit yes and a bit no.
Man: If you know suffering so well why don’t you do something about it?
God: It must be endured. The meaning of suffering is in the endurance. Not that that makes suffering okay or good. The heart of my very being knows suffering intimately.
Man: If you know it so well, what, then, is the meaning of suffering?
God: That is a knowledge that can’t be expressed with words. Even I could not tell you and if I could, I wouldn’t. All I have is the gift of myself to suffer with you and all the others, women and men, children and adults, animals and plants, kings and servants, great and small. I suffer the world into being and I suffer it to completion.
Man: But you still didn’t answer my question.
God: That is correct.
Man (gathers his belongings): I’d best be on my way then.
God: Travels!
Man: Why do you say “travels”?
God: Because I don’t want say “Safe travels” just like I won’t say “Godspeed.”
Man: But that’s what people always say.
God: I’m not people, though I am very human. I wish you well.
Man: Will we meet again?
God: Yes, I’m here, there, and everywhere. I’ll meet you in the water and the sand and I’ll meet you at the other end.
Your footprint dialogue struck a cord. I felt sad and liberate at the same time. The Footprint poem conjures up deep emotions in me. How much I wished that it was real. Only silence accompanies me in my walk – one set of foot prints all along.
I am listening to Chris De Burg, The snow of New York, while typing this response.
https://youtu.be/oqj9qwrytOE
Sorry for my late reply. I wish you strength on your journey. We all wish there was someone to carry us. At least in that and in the experience of the struggle we are not alone.
I’m intrigued by this, but don’t entirely follow. When you have God say, “I am the beach and I am the water that fills the footprints. I am the longing that makes a man persevere as he walks alone. I am the suffering he experiences and the pain he endures.”, it sounds somewhat pantheistic and deistic at the same time? How do you mean this?
Applying my own lenses of understanding, are you recognizing God’s transcendence as the creator and sustainer of all things (Hebrews 1:3), yet also appealing to the kenotic aspect of who He is, as Love (an aspect of God that is not only found in Jesus, but also in the Father)?
Would you agree that God’s disposition is always “FOR” all of humanity, but particularly WITH each “believer” in that our faith manifests a relationship that is established in reciprocal Love? And from this intimacy, God fosters an allegiance that prompts us to follow His lead as we daily-renew our desires to stand resolved in remembering this Love as we seek to know nothing except “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2?
Are you suggesting that this “knowing of God” enables us to be “partakers of the divine nature,” especially in how we engage the world and subdue the chaos around us? Namely, this knowledge of God, as the Lover of our souls (Jeremiah 12:7, 15; Exodus 34:6-7), enables us to transcend, in hope and love, the self-centered boundaries of our own sin-induced sufferings (and our desires to resist suffering) as we seek to be with and help others in their suffering? Isn’t this what Jesus did for each of us by demonstrating the glory of God through self-sacrifice (2 Peter 1:3-4; John 12:32)?
Are you suggesting that giving up our idols about who God is — often the idol of Jesus being a savior who lives to ensure and protect our individual comforts — is the first step in actually walking with Him in a way that is real and not man-made?
Perhaps Kierkegaard’s depiction of Abraham’s clarity in having taken the leap of faith is apropos to what you are writing? Is your point that only in suffering and desperation are we able to embrace the “teleological suspension of the ethical” as the means for genuinely drawing close to God (and our fellow man) through the paradoxical mystery of Jesus, the God-man?
Sorry Dave, for my late reply. I’ve been very busy and your response required both reflection and attention.
You ask quite a few questions with doctrinal references. I don’t think I wrote this piece with an elaborate doctrinal framework in mind. I intended this piece as a subversive reworking of the footsteps in the sand cliche one can see on social media and in Christian bookstores. The sugar-coated Jesus simply isn’t very convincing or persuasive. Our experience, or at least that of many, doesn’t line up with the simplistic idea that when we were at our lowest point, God carried us. Just as it isn’t true that God doesn’t give us more to bear than we can handle.
Such ideas may some biblical warrant but more than anything they are part of pop-culture evangelicalism infused with an unhealthy dose of calvinism.
As for SK, I wasn’t really working with the idea of the “teleological suspension of the ethical.” I’m also not trying to provide a theodicy beyond the theodicy. I’m simply trying to take the story in another direction that evangelicals are not comfortable with but that I believe is a more genuine interaction with reality.
Yes, hints of pantheism, or perhaps better panentheism, are present but those and other associations are peripheral to the central concern to make people aware that their evangelical pop-culture doesn’t line-up with reality.
I also had a few good laughs writing it.
I appreciate the perspective. I like what you say: “Our experience, or at least that of many, doesn’t line up with the simplistic idea that when we were at our lowest point, God carried us. Just as it isn’t true that God doesn’t give us more to bear than we can handle.” I agree, we have responsibility to act by faith (if we have it); and, we can’t always bear everything that comes our way, though God will sustain us through unbearably hateful times (as we learn “alone” in the “dark night of the soul”). And, when we don’t, grace still abounds.
Sometimes, God “shows up” when we least trust that He will, in the midst of a desperate, half-believing plea for mercy, deliverance, or vindication (Mark 9:24). And sometimes, we wrestle grace from Him because we trust that He’ll give it, even if we hear a “no” or nothing at all (Mark 7:28; Matthew 7:5-8). Judas despaired (because of shame mixed with a portion of doubt and a portion of belief?); Peter did not, for where else could he go?
I would challenge that remembering God’s tenderness and acceptance at a personal level through cliche stories isn’t harmful, necessarily. What if those cliche’s help us to remember to engage the One who bids us to come unconditionally (John 12:32)? Jesus, Himself, invited us with humility and tenderness: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus’ approachability makes it easier to carry the burdens of our responsibility as we look to Him for leading and grace. Embracing this idea doesn’t mean we are shirking the command to take-up our cross and follow Him.
In all of this, I guess I would just caution about recoiling too much at “evangelical sentimentality” as a pop sub-culture of Christendom. Depending on where some of us are at, perhaps the cliche is a form of grace, too? I mean, what gradient of illumination about God’s transcendence and our responsibility is to be considered an acceptable level?
I’ll admit that I find many doctrines and systems to be untenable and offensive within the broad spectrum of “historical orthodoxy,” as well. However, I can still find the desire to fellowship with Calvinists, or whoever, even if they fear to reciprocate, in return. Let the little one’s come by whatever means they find meaningful. So long as it leads to meaningful relationship with God and others in the long-run, who are we to condemn? We’re each on a path and some take detours and some trod-along at an unbearably slow pace, stepping in more than dust and mud along the way. When we find a brother or sister that “sorta stinks to us” and doesn’t welcome us, then let’s just avoid what we think they stepped in and wait till we’re brought closer in accordance with God’s timing. It’ll happen eventually.