Searching For Prints

And behold I am with you always… Matthew 28:20

I’m always fascinated when I see a crime show on TV and the investigators go through the process of dusting, taping and analyzing finger prints.  It’s just utterly amazing to me that there are millions and millions of people on this earth yet none of us has the same fingerprint.  How is that possible? We’re not talking about a large area of skin to create unique patterns…our fingertip is really small but yet each of us has a print that is completely different!  When my students ask me how that can be, I smile and tell them, “It’s so amazing only God could do that!”  

A few years ago, several homes in our area were broken into; ours included.  I watched as the Sheriff’s Deputy dusted many spots in our home with the grey finger print powder I’d seen the detectives use on TV.  It was so interesting to watch the prints become clearly visible as the powder was brushed over an area.  It was almost as if they had appeared out of thin air.  I watched with such interest, I think the Sheriff’s Deputy must have thought I was nuts!  He was so immune to the process, I’m sure he had done it hundreds of times but being a “first timer” I found it so interesting.  

The uniqueness, with which God created millions and millions of different finger prints, is the same uniqueness with which He loves and cares for each of us.  Like that Sheriff’s Deputy, it’s easy to become immune to the ways God leaves His finger print on our days.  Very often His finger prints can be so gentle and slight they go completely un-noticed. We can get busy about our everyday tasks and not realize how many times God leaves His  prints  as He organizes every detail of our day.  He guides and guards and blesses us constantly and we are often unaware.  The very fact that we and those we love arrive home safely at the end of each day is a really big finger print but sometimes we need a dusting of that grey powder to make us see.  

There are times when God leaves His print on us for the sole purpose of passing it on to someone else. Sometimes seemingly random people, often people I don’t even know very well, will pop into my head and I get the sense I should pray for them and maybe email or call them to tell them I’m praying for them.  I start with the praying part and hope that’s good enough…but more often than not, I get a stronger sense that I need to make contact and tell them they have been prayed for. Out of the dozens of times I’ve responded to that nudge from God, never once have I had a person react negatively…the response has always been one of gratitude, joy and comfort.  I sent an email once to a woman in South Dakota who I had been put in contact with when I first started this blog.  We had exchanged  two or three business like messages and then out of the blue one morning in prayer I got a strong sense that I should pray AND tell her I’d prayed.  So, after some “toddler like” feet dragging, I sent the message and within hours she replied and said she had been “overwhelmed and overloaded” with a project she felt God calling her to do.  She had prayed that God would give her assurance that she was on the right track and shortly after that, she opened the message telling her she had been lifted up in prayer.  She told me later that at that moment God’s love for her was confirmed and she faithfully pressed forward with the task, recognizing God’s finger print fully stamped on her day!  The next time you are tempted to say something was “good luck” or “coincidence” take a minute to thank God for what it really was…His finger print on your day!

A seed to plant:  Keep a piece of paper handy today and jot down each and every time God touches your day with His loving finger print.  Make sure it’s a long piece of paper because once you purposefully start looking for all those finger prints, you’ll be amazed at how many times a day it happens!​

Blessings on your day!