When the Footprint Meets the Foot

Tom Brown, in The Tracker, describes a desperate, wilderness search for a lost boy. Through footprints he became acquainted with the boy long before he found him. Then came that dramatic moment when footprint met foot and Tom ran across the open field to embrace him. In that case the trail was made by the one who needed to be rescued. In the case of Jesus, the footprint is the one who can rescue us! In both cases the meeting of the footprint and person who made it is overwhelming. When the footprint is of the Rescuer, the response of the rescued one is captured in the word godliness.

As with so many biblical qualities of the heart, godliness has been imprisoned in a list of stuff. Once the lost soul has met his Rescuer we set about showing him the proper way to bow and shake hands, the look of inappropriate enthusiasm, and the official way to speak.

However, the term for godliness is not that how-to oriented. It is linked, rather, to an attitude rising spontaneously when the lost soul meets, with breathtaking force, the mystery of godliness who is the embodiment of the footprint. That imagery of godliness carries the force of being awed by that which is truly awesome.

Interestingly, in some texts godliness is linked to the matter of economics. It makes sense. We tend to reveal what truly awes us by where we spend our “discretionary” money and for what we bind ourselves to long-term indebtedness.

This word brings us to our own response to the record of Jesus’ walk on our planet, and the response created in the lost souls who found in him forgiveness, life, and hope. It presses on me the question: does my life spring from a well of overwhelmed awe for who he is and what he has done?

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