Every Step You Take

By Dorothy Ward-Winters –

Gal 5:25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (NIV)  Job 31:4 Does he not see my ways and count my every step? (NIV)

Every step we take leaves an impression. Some steps are highly visible; some seem non-existent. Look behind you – who is following? Your footsteps are leading someone in the path you just trod.

In a detective show the lead detective made everyone stop at the doorway to the crime scene and look closely around the room. He cautioned his crew to notice how and where everything is placed. Is this a murder, robbery gone bad, or an accidental death?

The detective then had his crew get down on their knees, lay their face on the floor and look across the room from floor level. A footprint will show even if just a trace of dust on the floor is disturbed. Fibers of the carpet will be mashed down; sometimes so slight it is not visible while standing. Follow the pattern of steps as they moved across the room. Are the imprints made by a man’s shoe? A woman’s? A child’s? Are those toe impressions? Was someone walking barefoot?

Who is watching your footsteps? Is someone you love peeking around the corner as you view non-Christian films on television or the computer? Are young eyes seeing images too frightening to understand, yet fear? Are your footsteps leading into a bar? Did your shoes leave a mark under the table where you sat with your whiskey? Did your footsteps slur as you stumbled to your car?

Many of my steps have gone places I would not want my children to follow. I have stomped the floor in anger at a teen that broke curfew. My tongue has walked over words of hateful gossip. My ears stood still while others told tales that had only a smidgen of truth. My heart beat with hatred as my steps wound around old hurts better left buried.

Through God’s grace, I have been forgiven. God has erased my slate clean, but Satan has a way of bringing up the past to once again burden me with the fact that my lifestyle did not lead others to know Jesus Christ.

Things are different now. My steps have done an about face. I have returned to the teachings of my childhood just as God’s word promises, “Train a child in the way she should go and in her later years, she will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6.

I take delight when my steps deliver food to a shut-in, visit a sick friend, or pray with a newly widowed young woman. A daily commitment to study God’s word and teach it is also on the road I now follow. These are the steps I would be happy to have my children follow. My daily prayer is that my lifestyle will lead others to know fully the grace of God and the love of his son, Jesus Christ.