Footstools and the Life of Faith
August 25, 2009
“We walk by faith, not by sight” Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:7, and this is part of the challenge of the Christian life. Walking by sight is easy. It takes no effort to allow one’s life to be framed by the realities of grocery shopping, paying bills, working 9-5, watching the evening news, and moving in the same general flow as everyone else. The life of faith is different. Walking by faith means that unseen spiritual realities like God’s creation of and reign over the entire cosmos factors heavily into how we live our lives. Such a life requires constant questioning of what is seen, since “the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
To aid us in this life of faith, God often gives us images common to the world of sight to inform the world of faith. Consider the example of a footstool. No faith is required to understand this concept. My right foot is resting on a footstool (we call it an ottoman) as I write this. I can see and understand this as simple reality.
Yet Scripture uses this fixture in the world of sight to propel us into the world of faith when the Psalmist sings, “Exalt the LORD our God; worship at his footstool!” (Psalms 99:5) and “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!” (Psalms 132:7) Indeed, Israel’s temple is what King David had purposed in his heart to build as “the footstool of our God” (1 Chronicles 28:2).
Using equation of temple = footstool, God graciously employs two concrete images from the world we can see to communicate to us that the world we can see is not all that there is. If the temple is God’s footstool, then it means there is much more going on in that physical building than bricks and mortar. This place is where God rests his feet, where God’s completed work of delivering the Promised Land to Israel is memorialized and celebrated. It is a testament to the reality of God as king and sovereign over all the earth. This temple that is a footstool causes us to look up beyond the world of sight to the world of faith; it is a gateway through which we embrace spiritual truths that transcend what is seen.
Thus the life of faith does not ignore seeing but allows God to define what we see. When we see stones, we see potential singers of God’s praises (Luke 19:40). When we see birds of the air and grass of the field, we see recipients of God’s gracious, daily provision (Matthew 6:25-33). Most importantly, when we see other human beings, we see individuals created in God’s image who are designed to commune with him, worship him, and display his glory and reign on this earth. In other words, stones, birds, grass, and people are not the end point of reality-as walking by sight would suggest-but rather gateways through which we see what is real. There is a great God and an everlasting kingdom through that gateway, and to embrace this is to walk by faith.
May God enable our sight to give way to faith as we walk through this day.
Pastor Chris