Footprints of God in Every Season

By Merton Lee

Footprints of God in Every Season is an essential ground-breaking handbook for Christians, pastors, religious believers and wisdom-seekers. It solves the centuries-old mysteries of human suffering and Why Does The World Exist? It contains useful guidance on finding our real identity and our real life purpose. It also contains fresh insights and a new theodicy which will deepen our understanding of Gods purpose of creation and the problems of suffering. Rekindling our spiritual awareness, our reverence for the Giver of life, this handbook is a source of inspiration which will be treasured by Christians, pastors and truth-seekers for years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475979732

Merton Lee

Merton Lee is a Christian essayist, poet and teacher for the past 10 years. He has studied and practiced the key insights of the perennial wisdom of the major religions for 30 years. He is the author of two Christian articles “Let’s Do Something Beautiful For God” and “Footprints” (expanded version), both of which are in this book. He enjoys writing journals to share insights with his friends and students on the present-day significance of Christianity. He works as a finance manager in the public sector for about 20 years, contributing his best years to public service. He graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1993 with a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Economics. He obtained post-graduate degrees in business administration and accountancy in 1996. He is married for 17 years with two children.

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Copyright © 2013 by Merton Lee.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-7972-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-7973-2 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013903914

iUniverse rev. date: 03/06/2013

Contents

A Spring of Hope

(Sharing His Messages of Hope, Love and Truth)

A Summer of Strength

(Sharing His Messages of Strength, Courage and Self-Transcendence)

An Autumn of Faith

(Sharing His Messages of Faith, Understanding and Inner Peace)

A Winter of Wisdom

(Sharing His Messages on Life’s Mysteries, Problems and Wisdom)

A Spring of Hope

(Sharing His Messages of

Hope, Love and Truth)

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period.

When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake,

But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know;

It almost speaks to you.

Emily Dickinson

Did you ever wonder: Why is there something rather than nothing? To quote the well-known question of Stephen Hawking: Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing? Or may I ask: Why does God go through the bother of creating us and this world?

But does God exist? If positive, how do I find Him? How do I find out who am I? What is the purpose of my life?

If God is all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful, why does He allow undeserved suffering?

How do Christians, religious believers and followers of God respond when non-believers, agnostics or sceptics quote from the daily newspapers those accidents, crimes or natural disasters that resulted in undeserved suffering and untimely deaths?

Dr Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose-Driven Life emphasizes that life on earth is not about us, that our life on earth is not an accident and that we are born to serve God’s purposes.

Perhaps we may wonder: How do we find out that life on earth is not about us, that we are here to serve God’s purposes? How do we obtain God’s answers to: Why did He create us and this world? How do we obtain God’s answers to: What are His purposes for us on earth?

In addition, did you ever experience a sense of meaninglessness? Did you ever experience the need to find your real life purpose?

In the past few years, I liked to discuss with my friends on religious faith and the meaning of life. To initiate the discussion, I would read the following article [1] which I wrote "Can You Guess Who am I?":

"Can you guess my real identity? Can you guess who am I?

Before you start guessing, please don’t be deceived by my masks. I am wearing many social masks at home, at the school, at the workplace and at all types of social gathering. I am trying to show that I am confident, I am happy, I am popular . . . But deep inside, I am uncertain.

Thus, please don’t be deceived. I am wearing these masks to hide my real feelings. Please don’t be deceived by my smiles and laughter, by my jokes and gossip. I am trying to hide my doubts. I am trying to hide my weariness.

Please don’t be deceived by my excitement about life. I am tired of trying to outperform others. I am tired of trying to get ahead and obtain those prizes. I am tired of living my life as if it were a continuous emergency. I am tired of being frightened of losing my job and my friends. How can I find tranquillity? How can I find inner peace?

I am equally tired of not understanding my real

needs and goals in life. Is it because I do not truly know my life purpose that I am pursuing external success and sense pleasures, so as to try to fill the emptiness inside?

Please tell me how I can find my life purpose. So many unhappy events have happened to me in the past, so much so that I have lost faith in God. Please tell me whether there is a God and if positive, how I can find Him.

By the way, do you know who am I? Have you guessed who am I? Yes, you are right. I am your neighbor. I am your colleague. I am your boss. I am your cousin. I am your niece. I am your uncle. I am your aunt. I am your brother. I am your sister. I am your child. I am your spouse. I am the everyday man or woman you meet on the street. Yes, I am also you . . . Please help me, God."

This book aims to provide useful perspectives, responses and answers to these critical questions. May we begin by revisiting a famous story called Footprints. I have revised it based on deep insights I received six months ago. This new version reflects the hope, love and truth which God brings to us in the changing seasons of life. To quote Thomas Merton’s memorable words in his introduction to the Japanese translation of The Seven Storey Mountain: I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both . . .

Footprints

(New Version)

Jesus said: The kingdom of God is within you.

(Luke 17:21)

Saint Teresa of Avila:

"Christ has no body but yours,

no hands and no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

with compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands with which he blesses the world."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The soul in man is the background of our being . . . From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all."

Helen Keller: I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower.

Pope John Paul II: Man’s life comes from God.

Mother Teresa: It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing that matters.

Corrie ten Boom: God values us not for our strength or our brains, but simply because He has made us.

A middle-aged man dreamed that he had become a spiritual being and that he was walking on a beach together with God, the divine Spirit. They left two trails of footprints in the sand behind them.

Scenes of the man’s life flashed across the sky. The man observed that during the pleasant days of his life as shown across the sky, there were two trails of footprints behind them. He knew that God was walking beside him during the pleasant days. But during the difficult days, he observed only one trail of footprints.

Assuming that the one trail of footprints belonged to him and that God had abandoned him during the difficult times, the man enquired why he was left alone to handle the difficulties.

God explained, You are My precious child. I will never leave you. During your difficult times, when you see one trail of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

The man thanked God. Nevertheless he was perplexed by the answer. Inwardly he reasoned that if God were all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful, why God did not remove or reduce the trials and suffering in his life.

Being all-knowing, God was aware