Where the Footsteps End

“The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” Proverbs 15:3

I’m sitting on the screened in porch on the Folly River waiting for the sun to open its sleepy eyes. There is stirring among the clouds as if they are making way for the sun’s grand awakening. The birds are sweetly singing, and I can hear the shrimp popping in the watery grass below me. The water is as still as glass, and one would never know that 2 hours ago there was chaos and chase, helicopters and search boats, flashlights and night vision. Well except for me and Bruce. We were awakened to alternating lights of red and white with a steady light of green on the water. At first my heart sunk for fear that one of the young teens we saw earlier yesterday might be part of a search and rescue…person overboard. I began to pray that it wasn’t that and my mind wandered that perhaps they were searching for a criminal. The police were walking with flashlights up and down our dock pier in front of our building. They were shining their lights in the water, up on our land and in the grass. I noticed that I had a text from my neighbor informing me that I had left our garage door open. I realized that since I hadn’t closed that door, the riverside door was also unlocked. Bruce walked out on the dock where the police were and discovered that after a high-speed chase, a guy stopped his car on the bridge, and jumped off the bridge into the water to escape. They found wet footprints on the floating dock of our pier that led up to our community. For the next hour we watched and waited to see if they discovered the missing man, but they eventually ended their search and things were calm again. This morning as our community comes to life with a busy Friday, little will they know what all transpired while they were sleeping.

I began thinking about how God protects us and orchestrates things when we do not even know it. We can never know what tragedy He diverts or the evil from which He protects us. Little do we know the cancer in our bodies that never emerged. Little do we know that He might have saved one of our children from a horrible car wreck. Little do we know that He might have intervened from a job being lost. Little do I know that He quite possibly steered that man from hiding in our garage.

We may never know the tender mercies God is showing us every day…every hour…every second as we walk out the mundane. But I love reminders like this, that He never sleeps and knows where both good and evil reside. The authorities just might not ever find their guy, but God knows exactly where He is. God is the ultimate judge and whatever justice is not served on earth, will be served in Heaven…that’s a guarantee. God always knows where the footsteps end!

So as you go about your day be sure and thank God for the unseen mercies we are experiencing through His love and protection.