Snow Steps

It's 2 below today is Bismarck, ND; with a 60 percent chance of snow. Brrrr.

I grew up in those Dakota winters. Got up each morning (with the help of my father's voice booming down to my basement bedroom) to deliver the local newspaper door to door. I can picture myself trudging through the snow in my moon boots with The Bismarck Tribune on my back. It was manageable, aside from the Sunday edition which could get pretty hefty. This is probably the root cause of each of my spinal subluxations.

There is something so beautiful about freshly fallen snow, tiny crystals piled up like a sparkling white blanket to cover the dead frozen ground. It's breath-taking. When the temperatures really dip that happens - it will take your breath away! We were always careful to bundle up and breathe through a scarf. I miss the snow, but I sure don't miss the cold.

I remember a game we used to play in our backyard. My daddy would shuttle-step through the snow to create a giant wheel. Then he would add spokes to the wheel and in the center was the home-base hub. The game was called Fox and Goose and the "fox" would chase all the "geese" around the circle. Inside the hub was safety. The critical part was to stay in the snow path that Dad had created with his foot steps. Any steps outside the spokes were easy to spot and you were "caught".

It's much less work, especially when the snow is deep, to walk inside the snow steps that someone else has created. My parents did that for us. They plowed the way through the snow in the backyard and they plowed the way in knowing Christ, in trusting God, in living a life of faith.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD,
And He delights in his way.

Psalm 27:23

Check out the pronouns in that second phrase "He" delights. That is a capital "H". God delights in our steps. The steps that He has ordered for our lives. Lovely, isn't it? God delights in laying out a path before us. He delights when we say "show me the way wherein I should walk". He delights when we create a path that others could follow in and find safety.