There is a little monolog that was prominent in Christian circles some time ago. It showed up on a lot of plaques, usually with a background that was a beach in a golden sunset with a single track of footprints… yeah, you may already be recognizing this.

 

It actually was not a bad sentiment. A little bit trite, and then overplayed and pounded into the ground. But in case you are still in the dark, or don’t run in Christian circles and therefore are blessedly ignorant, this is the gist of it:

 

Somebody is looking back on his life, visualized as a walk along the ocean. He sees the good times and the bad. He notices that during the good times there were two sets of footprints in the sand: his, and God’s, walking with him. But during the bad times there was only one set. He complains to God about how cold it was for God to leave him alone when he needed it most. God replies that when there was only one set of footprints, it’s because those were the times God was carrying him. Snif.

 

Alright. You can see what I mean. Nice sentiment. Nothing wrong with it. A little trite, a little tidy. The plot thickens: in 1999 a band named Spooky Tuesday (what a great name) wrote a song about the poem/narrative/monolog or whatever you want to call it.

 

They pretty much got it all wrong. The poem is about how the person felt abandoned and alone, when in reality he was not. But the song is about how the person does NOT feel abandoned and alone. “I can feel Him.” “I can see Him.” “He speaks to me- He speaks so clearly.” And, lest you should think I’m falsely conflating the two, here is the chorus:

 

But when I fall down He comforts me and He picks me up

And when I look back, and all I can see is one set of footprints;

He carries me.

 

OK. As I seem to never stop yapping about, I did spend some years walking through such a hard time. There was exactly one set of footprints, and I promise you, they were not God’s. They were mine.

 

So, we have a poor poem that doesn’t correspond to my reality, and the song even got the poem wrong. Is there any redeeming value at all to this song, besides the rather great drumming? Well there must be: this is one of my favorite songs. All time. Killer. Top shelf. So I’m writing to try and work out HOW on EARTH that could ever be. It was not easy to figure out and it will not be easy to articulate. I mean, I didn’t think about the song and conclude that I loved it. I realized I loved the song, and was completely baffled by the fact. I had to work on it for a long time to figure out why.

 

Maybe I could work backwards. I’m better now, and have been for a long time. I understand why the hard time was both necessary and inevitable, and I thank God for it. I’ve probably said this before about depression: it’s like a tunnel. You don’t come out where you went in. I like it on this side and God had to plunge me into the dark, alone, to get me here. It was very dark and I was very much alone.

 

No connection yet, with a song about how God comforts me in my hard times. I realized, though, that I am comforted NOW, and I am comforted NOW about THEN. He does speak to me clearly, now, about then. It’s a fair question what use that is. Feeling good now doesn’t retroactively help me back then.

 

In fact, it’s likely that my expectations are off, with all this talk about feeling comforted. After all, we can’t be PollyAnnas and claim that the Christian life is all ease and simplicity. Nor can we claim that whenever it’s hard, God will make us feel good during the hard times so that they aren’t actually hard. That’s just not true. It’s not realistic. Hard times really are hard. Really, really hard. Even for Christians.

 

But here is what I know now, that I didn’t know then: God promises comfort, and that promise is comforting. God comforts me with the promise of comfort. And that, in fact, is real comfort. Of course, if you don’t believe the promise, you aren’t comforted. But when God finally drags your sorry butt to the place where you believe the promise, you ARE comforted.

 

What do you suppose God’s comfort would be like? A good feeling? Confidence? Some kind of inner ease? And based on what? Just a sort of floating sensation of well-being? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. Let’s think about that.

 

We Christians all live under a distinction- we know facts about our future and destiny and salvation, but that is in a different department from our present feelings of discomfort, agony, fear, and so on. You can claim that it’s a false distinction, any I guess it SHOULD be a false distinction, but it isn’t. You can know all the facts and still be in utter distress and despair. If that’s the case; if you know the good news and feel like dejected crap anyway, what kind of comfort might you imagine to be available? What might God send your way?

 

Well, the comfort comes when that false distinction goes away. I’ll talk about that more in a minute, but it’s important to first say that while the distinction holds, there is no comfort for you. It has to be removed. The promise is in your head and the agony is in your heart, and a thick wall keeps them apart. Getting rid of the wall may take drastic measures. For me it did, and they were not fun. But they removed, or at least seriously eroded, the distinction. So how does that help?

 

All those facts I know are about how it’s going to be OK- how there will be joy and justice and mercy in abundance, and celebrations. I know that now. It’s in my bones, at least in enough measure for the trials I’m having these days. And that promise of comfort is comforting. So, in those promises, it’s true, just like the song: “I feel Him.” “I can see Him.” “He speaks to me- He speaks so clearly.”

 

The poem was wrong. I was wrong. The song is right.

 

Why were the hard times hard? Partly because I didn’t not believe God’s promise of comfort, so I got no comfort from that promise. Looking back, I now see that my time in the darkness WAS God speaking to me. He didn’t do that the way I wanted. But what do I know? He’s God. The issue wasn’t His voice—it was my ears. He did it the right way. Now I see. Even God’s silence, even the sensation of being abandoned, was God speaking to me.  I can’t see how to articulate what a comfort that is. But that song just nails it. Nails it.