Footstools and Enemies

…now he waits until his emery are made his footstool. Hebrews 10:13

 As I sat in mass this weekend I heard this verse jump out of the second reading and my mind went zooming back to the living room of my childhood home.  I vividly remembered that we had a dark green footstool in our living room and as I recall, it had many functions.  My favorite memory of that footstool was the way my little brother used to fasten a bath towel around his neck like a super hero and jump off that footstool thinking it would boost him high enough that he could fly.  We did use it to rest feet on, especially when there was a story to be read or a baby to be rocked.  It was sturdy and comfortable and important.

I had to stretch a little and read this verse a time or two before it’s meaning really hit my heart.  When I read the word enemy, I immediately thought of a person.  I don’t have any human enemies so I moved on to a verse I thought had more meaning but something kept calling me back.  After I let it percolate in my mind and heart a while, it came to me.  The enemy may not be a person at all.  The enemy could be anything preventing my pursuit of the Fathers joy.  It’s always a great time to do some soul searching about enemies that might creep into our lives and try to distract us.

I was able to stick a label on my enemies rather quickly once I started thinking about it.  I would love to sit at God’s right hand like the line before this verse reads, and watch Him slap down a footstool on impatience or on judgmental thinking or on any other of the sinful areas of my life.  I was really touched by those those beautiful words in this reading,“at my right hand”.  In order to have Him put those enemies at his feet like a footstool, I have to be beside Him. He can’t help me if I’m a mile away, He needs me right there beside Him clinging to Him with childlike dependence.  Then and only then will the footstool slamming begin!  

Just like my living room as a child, sometimes we had to move some stuff out of the way to get to the footstool, so it is with our need to move the barriers that are keeping us from the right hand of God so we can get near that footstool.  What’s in your way?

A Seed To Plant:  Take the next few days to prayerfully consider what enemies you would like to see as his footstool and then reach for God’s hand.​

Blessings on your day!