CSI: Dusting for God’s Prints

“I look behind me and You’re there, then up ahead and You’re there, too, Your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful, I can’t take it all in!”  Ps 139:5-6

CSI. You probably know the show. Research shows that it’s on ALL the time, 24 hours a day somewhere around the world. They solve mysteries by using evidence left in the past to figure out something in the present. They mark chalk lines around bodies, put caution tape around crime scenes, and of course, dust for prints.

Scripture says, “I look behind me and You’re there.” Well, what if we could look back over the past day and dust it for prints? God’s prints…sure signs of the presence of God. Webster defines fingerprints as, “a trace revealing origin or responsibility.” No doubt, your dusting would reveal that He was there, actively involved in your life. What you and I discover may be different, but God’s presence…guaranteed. You cannot go anywhere that God is not.

I’d look back and see His print on the smile of my granddaughter (after I remembered how to change her diaper). I’d find His print in the talk with my son this morning, and in the encouragement from a friend after lunch. I see his print just above my desk, among the colorful pictures kids have handed me saying, “I made this for you.” (This, by the way, is exactly what God says of the last 24 hours He’s given you!)

Last night, while rushing to a meeting, I wanted a quick snack. One thing in mind. Peanut M&Ms (for the protein). I dug in my pocket and only found thirty five cents. Thirty cents short. As I rounded a corner, I heard a custodian let out a frustrated gasp. The snack machine had just taken his money. The machine wouldn’t give him the honey bun he bought. “I’m gonna have to shake this machine” he said. And he did. Out drops a bag of Peanut M&Ms…then the honey bun. Thirty six choices in that machine and those two things fall out. Too small to be God? Not to me.

Life is more than candy and snacks, and perhaps I’d find His print in the pain in my shoulder, because it reminds me to keep trusting Him for healing. Or I’d find it in that scripture I wasn’t looking for but accidentally stumbled on and found it convicted me of a sin. I needed that. Or, I’d find it in the void created by the loss of ones close to me or in the feelings of aloneness I feel as a single empty nester. All of these prints remind me that this world is not my home.

So friend, how about dusting this moment for traces of God in your day. Our awareness of His presence and gratitude for keeping us is life changing. 

Years ago my oldest brother got a Detective Science Kit. His first mission: dust a cup for fingerprints to determine which of us eight kids were guilty of drinking the last cup of milk we were told not to touch. He told my dad it was my prints. It wasn’t. I got in trouble. No problem though. Now my heavenly Father lets me see traces of His prints…everywhere.

The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. NLV Ps 37:23