This  parable won a competion put on by Peter Rollins and Paraclete press . The parable was written by Kester Brewin and is entitled Footprints.

There was once a man who had lived a long and difficult life. When he finally lay down, a faint smile bent the lines in his face as his eyes were shut. He had run the race; now he could rest. The curtain was pulled back, and he stumbled through the light to meet God.

‘My Master and my Friend,’ the old man hailed God as he prostrated himself before God’s feet. Hearing no reply, the man looked up and saw God shuffling awkwardly in his chair, not quite managing to fight back a blush across his cheeks.

Not wanting his moment of judgement and welcome to be spoiled, the old man gathered his courage and spoke up.

‘My Lord and my God,’ he began, nervously. ‘Is this not the time when my life and works shall be weighed in your scales and my named checked against those who have made it into the Book of Life?’ After such a tiring day it was difficult for him to remember the exact details of what was meant to be happening, but he felt certain that it should be God who should be taking the lead.

‘My child,’ said God sadly, before petering out and looking around for some way out.

Following God’s gaze, the old man took in a crumpled photo, pinned to a crowded notice board hung askew in a dark corner.

His heart leapt. ‘Father,’ he said, getting up carefully like a servant in Medieval court, ‘here is a photo of footprints on a beach…’

God took it and stared at it for a while and as the man perceived his eyes glistening, his own tears came, for he knew the photo, and knew the words of comfort that came with it. ‘Tell me, Lord,’ he said, knowing already the lines that would come, ‘tell me what the footprints mean.’

And so God began.

‘Your life has been like a walk along the beach with me, many scenes from your life flashing across the sky. In each scene there are footprints in the sand, sometimes two sets, at other times only one.’

At this point God paused, and looked down, and so the old man seized the initiative, and played too his part.

‘Lord, this bothers me because I notice that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I can see only one set of footprints.’

He looked up, but saw God unmoved, so continued. ‘You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?’

He bowed his head, holding back the tears, ready for the words of succour that he knew must come.

And slowly God replied, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when you carried me.’

The man frowned for a moment, paused, and then looked up. ‘Surely Lord,’ he began rather embarrassed to be correcting the Almighty, ‘you mean when you carried me.’

‘My dear child,’ God said, twisting a loose thread of cloth from his flowing robes, his face suddenly a mirror in which the old man saw the battles he had fought and the doubts he had put asunder, ‘this was the measure of your faith: when difficulties came, you gathered up this tired and arthritic God, and carried your beliefs to safety.’

A small wind blew through the old photographs and worn papers, and the two men sat in silence for a moment.

‘I have prepared a room for you,’ God said after a while, ‘though I quite understand if you don’t want me to stay.’

[© KB 2009]

By Jokim Schnoebbe

There are many Christians who defend their faith in the inspiration of the Bible by saying (in effect) that they have accepted it by faith. They have thus, as it were, accepted their faith by faith.

This might lead us to suppose that all of them regard their faith as something subjective, but this is not so. Many of them claim that their faith is true, that their opinions correlate to objective reality. When asked why they believe this, most of them say it is because they have the inner assurance that their faith comes from God.  Therefore it is the true faith.

Now if all these people agreed about

the content of their faith, we would have to admit that their faith does likely come from God. The trouble is that they do not. Which leads—provided that God exists at all—to two possible conclusions: (1) God grants different people faith for various contradicting opinions. (2) Their faith is not only a God-given thing but also the result of their own reasoning, experience and authority (and often an ill-thought-out jumble of these three).

To Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, the first conclusion was not an option.

Otherwise he would have had to believe that God did not care much for truth. And that would be the same as saying that God did not care for reality, because truth is a description of reality. And how could Ultimate Reality not care for reality? To keep believing in such a “God,” one would have to reduce Him to something very much less than God. He would be some sort of indefinable force that gives people faith no matter what the content of their faith.

Having said this, C. S. Lewis did recognize that all knowledge of God is incomplete, and that people’s use of Reason, Experience and Authority is never perfect. His God was One who saw people’s true desire for Him, even when buried underneath many incomplete and even false conceptions of Him. Lewis believed that “every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him.”

This leaves us with option two. People’s concrete faith is not only a God-given thing but also the result of their own reasoning, experience and authority. The examples one could give in support of this are too numerous to recount.

Can anyone doubt, for instance, that human reasoning is involved in the current debate on homosexuality in the Anglican Church? Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson thinks that homosexuality is a good thing; but a number of his colleagues, particularly in the developing world, think of homosexuality as a serious perversion of God’s creation.

Robinson has obviously a very different kind of faith on this point than his opponents. Both, however, seem to share a strong sense of God being on their side. Robinson described his bishopric as “a calling from God.”  But others, such as Bishop Robert Duncan, were not impressed by his claim of God’s approval. “This body has divided itself from millions of Anglican Christians throughout the world,” he said, adding: “May God have mercy on this church.”

The one believes in a God who blesses the church by giving her homosexual leaders; the other one calls on God’s mercy for the church’s apostasy in this area. Both cannot be right. Their respective faiths cannot both be God-given. They can conceivably be given by a force, by some vague energy, but not by the Ultimate Fact-hood of all existence.

Can a supposedly God-given faith, then, ever be sufficient evidence for the divine origin of the Bible? Judging from C. S. Lewis’ efforts to give reasons for his faith, it is safe to say that he did not think so.

This is taken from Jokim Schnoebbe’s blog, he is also known as the Author Jacob Schriftman. I first met Jokim a few years back in South Africa and we traveled together for a teaching tour in the far east. We also lived together here in Sweden for a few months where we both were involved in a course with YWAM. He is a talented speaker,artist,teacher,author,father,husband and fotball player (and a few other things). I warmly recommend his work.You can read more about him on his site schriftman.net and purchase his books on Amazon as Jacob Schriftman or as Jokim Schnoebbe.