The Fingerprints of God
When I picked up a recent call from my longest standing friend—she sounded serious and slightly panicked.
“Kathy, You’re NOT gonna believe this.”
As my BFF in grade school, I knew her well. Back then we had imagined ourselves intrepid detectives, sneaking out one night in our pea coats and baby doll PJ’s to investigate mysterious flashing lights. Once we staked out our local bank for hours certain that some nefarious “customer” would quietly plant a bomb and slip away.
So imagination and hijinks were in our history.
But I wasn’t expecting her to share this bonafide mystery and the very real problem it created.
Earlier, she and I had been texting. She happily told me that she and her husband were flying to Scotland the next day to spend a week with friends who were celebrating their 50th anniversary. We traded travel questions for travel tips. I promised to pray for energy, safety driving on the other side of the road, no canceled flights or lost luggage; I signed off with a few praying hands and hearts emojis—not expecting to hear from her until her return from Scotland.
An hour later, she called. AND she was right—I TRULY could not believe what I was hearing.
She and her husband could not find their passports. The passports they had recently put in the nightstand drawer to stay put until their BIG TRIP. The passports they needed in less than 24 hours. Yeah, THOSE passports.
After tearing their house apart, including the nightstands, they had a sinking feeling. Someone had stolen them. And yes, there were a few possible suspects.
Short of fingerprinting their recently fired cleaning crew, they would never know for sure.
Fingerprints are evidence that someone was there. Even without forensics—we can take an educated guess. Odds are the crumbs on my kitchen counters have my husband’s fingerprints all over them. And when a vase full of fresh flowers greets me at the end of a long day, I see his fingerprints again.
God’s fingerprints show up in billions of stars crowding the night sky. And in the Hubble Spacecraft pictures. More recently, I sensed the magnificent hand of God at the breathtaking Dublin Botanical Gardens. (see sidebar)
“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature.” Romans 1:20 NLT
Often times, God’s fingerprints are undetectable—until much later. We think He is absent and are hard pressed to trust in His presence and care for us.
This lesson was personally brought home to me many times, from the unlikely conception of our son after years of trying and several miscarriages to a London housing challenge to the pitiful looking pansies in my front garden. I had lost hope—but hindsight showed that God was at work very specifically all along.
Back to my friend’s missing passports: After hearing her dilemma, I hung up, and immediately texted a small group of local MomsHooPray to ask the God who knows everything—including what happened to her passports—to intercede. We prayed that somehow she could get replacements the next day from the DC Passport office, a four+ hour roundtrip. Sadly, she dejectedly left DC empty handed, wondering how to break this devastating news to the couple who expected to fly with her that evening.
We continued to pray for a small “miracle.” We prayed that they were not stolen but simply misplaced and would be found in time. One of my MomsHooPray friends shared her own experience which I passed on:
I FEEL her pain and stress! 5 days before my hubby and the girls left we could not find their passports ANYWHERE. We ransacked the house over and over and over, and got to where we were looking in places we would NEVER put them (out in a farm outbuilding inside a boot, for one true and hilarious example!) I called the airlines and started trying to figure out how to cancel the trip, and then I found the passports 3 days before they left! They were in a zippered pocket of a random hanging bag that we had checked prob 4 times already! I am praying for your friend!!!!!
As she began her long drive home, she called her husband. They discussed how they BOTH remembered putting those passports in THAT safe place. In one last ditch effort he wandered the house and spied what looked like an empty bag atop her office desk. Reaching inside he pulled out both passports! Rejoicing, they hurriedly grabbed their already packed suitcases* and in 45 minutes with none to spare, they were headed through security to join the flight.
Many weeks after this adventure, my friend remembered she had indeed put the passports in the exact place where they were found. If they had dusted for fingerprints, hers would have shown up.
However, God’s fingerprints were all over one unusual but crucial decision, nudging her to pack her carryon several days in advance. Never before had she packed so far ahead of her flight. So, with no time for makeup or hairbrush, she was able to grab and go as soon as she walked in the door. Had she not been completely packed, they would have missed their flight, the connecting flight and caused a cascading disruption to carefully choreographed plans.
My friend is grateful that she swallowed her pride, and told me about her dire situation. She knew I would pray. And I knew my C’ville friends who have never met her would pray, too. (I daily see the fingerprints of God behind the formation of our little text group!)
My friend and I shared many capers in one year of elementary school. As we look back with laughter at most of our hijinks, we often wonder who saw two sneaky, sometimes disobedient little girls and prayed for God to reveal His personal, transforming love for us.
I don’t know who it was. But someone must have prayed for us. Years later, we independently came to the same conclusion—that Jesus was literally the physical manifestation of a very personal deity.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Colossians 1:15
He was—and is—”God with skin on.” Fingerprints included.
Rooted in Truth: For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. Romans 1:20 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:9-10 “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.” John 14:7-11
Growing in Love: Be the fingerprint of God in someone else’s life. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Philippians 2:3-7 Respond with grace rather than reacting in anger. No telling what someone is going through or is up against that might be behind their actions. Choose to overlook an offense. Sincerely pray for their well being and peace instead of judging them. “Show up” in a myriad of ways: a friendly text or call, a note of gratitude or support, a last minute lunch invitation, an elaborate meal at your dinner table, an unexpected financial gift, practical help in time of need, a casserole, a bouquet of flowers, a loaf of bread or a plate of cookies. Find out what someone needs, doesn’t have time for or doesn’t like to do—like gardening, decorating, babysitting, cooking—and do it for them!
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2 The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. Psalm 68:17
View:
Click this link, Hubble 30th Anniversary Imagery Slideshow; scroll down to find image below; click blue arrow to advance each image
The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call for songs of joy.” Psalm 65:8
Watch:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. Isaiah 40:28
Watch:
Listen: Fingerprints of God by Dan Bremner:
Listen: Be Kind by Jason Gray:
Read: Fingerprints can be detected on practically any solid surface—including the human body. (Forensic junkies, read more here and here.)
Read: Take note in this Forbes article: “In order for you to exist, a great many unlikely events needed to unfold in exactly the way that they did. The exact sperm cell and egg cell needed to meet to create you with the DNA sequence that encoded you, and brought you into existence; a one-in-250 million chance for a sperm cell alone. That needed to happen each time in an unbroken string for millions of generations of your ancestors, going back to well before they were human beings or even hominids of any type”…”Other unlikely events needed to occur as well: life needed to take hold on Earth, Earth needed to form as a habitable planet with the right ingredients for life out of the ashes of previously dead stars, the laws of physics needed to be such that they permitted life, and the Universe itself must have unfolded in such a way as to make all of this possible”…Now read about the odds: “rolling five ‘sixes’ in a single dice roll of five dice is an unlikely outcome, which will onlyThe author fails to mention, however, that the dice cannot roll themselves. Simple logic tells us that someone has to do the rolling!
Rooted & Growing 