Just under two weeks ago, we published an editorial entitled “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness” & 8 Other Misquoted Bible Phrases” in which we documented several popular proverbs and familiar sayings that are not contained in the Bible but, are ordinarily considered to spawn there.
And because the church is a gift that keeps on giving, it has also come to our attention that there is another significant phrase we might have left out and that is “Footprints In The Sand”.
In the middle of a Bible study of which she is a semi-regular attendee, close sources confirmed that Rachel Atkinson, a woman from Riverbank California, keenly searched the Book of Psalms for her favourite scripture—the much-beloved Footprints In The Sand poem.
“I just know it’s here somewhere. Or was it in Ecclesiastes?”
Atkinson reportedly muttered as she leafed through the pages of her crimson Scofield Reference Bible, confident that every page turn would reveal the inspired words to help accentuate her conversational point about the love of Jesus.
“It sure sounds like a Psalm, right?”
According to her friends and family, Atkinson often references the passage, which relays the vision of a man looking over his life with Christ and realizing that Christ in fact never abandoned him but carried him through his worst times.
“Yeah, Rachel quotes that chapter all the time,” offered her husband. “It’s in Proverbs, right?”
A fairly exhaustive search of concordances for several translations reveals that the answer to this question is: “There are none.”
The word “footprints” only appears a couple of times, most notably in Psalm 77: 19 —
“Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.”
What Rachel and her husband were probably thinking of is the poem/essay “Footprints In the Sand” written by Mary Stevenson in 1936 and republished in revised form by other writers in 1963 and 1964.
Here is the original below
One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”
He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”
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