Psalm 114

1 When Israel came out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
2 Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3 The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back;
4 the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
5 Why was it, O sea, that you fled, O Jordan, that you turned back,
6 you mountains, that you skipped like rams, you hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water.
Image you are fifty-eight years old. You are one of the oldest survivors among a nation that has spent the last forty years in the wilderness, but now are ready for the promises of God made to this generation. You are one of the few that can recall the riches of Egypt that this nation left to travel to the new land that God had promise to Abraham almost five hundred years earlier. These were the Israelites who were eighteen when Israel left the riches of Egypt to gain the freedom of becoming a new nation. A nation that had the blessing of God.

Now as an older man I can look back and see the hand of God in my life too. My prayer is that all my children and grandchildren could have the same presence of God in their life as I was able to experience. I was blessed by turning my life over to Christ at an early age, however during the journey from my youth to becoming an old man sometimes it looked like God deserted me. This is what the poem Footprints in the Sand describes and pictures as a lifelong walk written by Mary Fishback Powers.
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.”

It is the wonderful enjoyment that comes late in life that God has been with you all the time, and when the journey ends on the earth He will be there to take you home.