My kids had a snow day today. Our school system, and many all around us, had already been cancelled because of wide-spread illness. My boys knew in advance that they were getting to spend their Friday at home, but then they heard the weather forecast. Snow! Oh this called for plans. They spent our entire dinnertime on Thursday making plans for the snow they were surely going to wake up to.
This game has disappointed many times in the past, but today it didn’t. They woke up at 7 a.m., peeked out into the darkness and saw just enough to know that God had delivered the cherry on top of their Friday off cake. They were dressed and out the door by 7:30. If only they felt that same urgency on school mornings. Alas, they don’t.
I went about my usual morning tasks – God time, breakfast and copious amounts of coffee. Then I saw my husband off to work and decided it might be time to check on the kids. They were knee-deep in snowman building. I say knee-deep because they were literally crawling while pushing balls of snow around the yard. Allegedly, it was too hard to bend over while walking and pushing. Let’s just breeze on by that revelation and get to my point, shall we?
As I stood there looking out the back door I noticed all the tracks they were leaving. And then I thought about my next task of the morning, which was shredding some old paperwork that I no longer needed to keep. It’s kind of like covering your tracks I guess. I watched my boys play and thought about tracks a little while longer.
They can be blessing and a curse. My immediate reaction was thinking about how nice it is that my mistakes are to God like the tracks in that melting snow. God’s forgiveness just melts them away. Oh, how thankful I am for that. It sure does allow me to enjoy the days more. The Bible says if we confess our sins, He remembers them no more. The old is gone and the new is here. I’m sure we’ve all got some old tracks we would like dusted over.
Acts 3:19 says, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” I love the thought that refreshing comes after. Sometimes it is deeply beneficial to let go of the tracks of the past. We don’t need to leave a path to get back there. When God clears the prints, let them go.
Sometimes, though, there is a bit of value in tracks. They do serve as a guide. A map of sorts. Following the tracks of the right people can sure help get us where we need to be. I think about following the tracks my parents left for me and what tracks I’m leaving for my children. I have a perspective now where all that remains of my parents are the tracks they left. It sure makes me feel stronger about the ones I’m leaving for my boys.
I guess what I’m leaving feels more important to me now than ever. One day that’s all my kids will have, whatever tracks I leave for them. Goodness how I pray I keep them headed in the right direction. I’m less concerned about how anyone else views my tracks, but I do hope I make the way clear for those two. I believe that it absolutely does matter. If I don’t make what I believe is the right path clear to them, someone else will show them the wrong ones.
As adults, we know that we’re going to get tested over and over. I hope that I’ve shown my work well enough and left enough tracks, that my kids can benefit from my trials. Maybe they – and maybe even you reading this if you have to cover some of the same ground – can get something beneficial from knowing the path I’ve traveled. Maybe my journey will help save you an unpleasant detour. It is, in part, why I write these.
If I can leave tracks for my kids that lead to Jesus, then I will have done well. If I can leave tracks that could help someone around a pitfall instead of falling in like I have done many times, then I will have done well.
My prayer for each of us today is that we would ask Jesus to wipe away the tracks that don’t serve us, and help us to leave a path permanent enough for those coming behind to find solid ground with Him.
