Footsteps from Above – The James Sequence

Once a month I have breakfast with a bunch of ministry leaders at a local mission. We sit in a quiet room eating breakfast as we listen to each other’s prayer requests. At the end of the meal we pray together.

The mission where we meet houses many homeless women and their children. Often while we’re praying, the kids are getting ready for school. We can hear their tiny footsteps walking or running overhead. Some may think this would be an interruption to our quiet prayer time but I think it’s just about the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

Those little footsteps represent children being helped—a family being saved from living on the streets. It tells me of the eagerness of the children to get to the normality of school and friends. Mission living is not normal; a house is normal, an apartment is normal. The kids need normal. The mission is the beginning for them—a start-over you might say. It’s a place where their family can heal and put life back together.

James tells us we should be doing all we can for those in need. In chapter two verses15-17 it talks about faith and works. If we see a poor, destitute person and just tell them, “Depart in peace and be warmed and fed,” but do nothing to ease their hunger…in what way are we helping? We have to make our faith in God real and visible to them. We need to put our faith to the test and see if we really believe what we say we believe. If I give my food to a hungry person can God replace it with what I need to survive? Yes, He can!


Those little children tromping across the floor at the mission depend on folks like us to step up to the plate to do what we can to help them. They’re too young to understand foundations and donations and all that stuff, but they’re not too young to understand a hug, a look of love, and help from a friend. It takes God’s people to show His love to the unloved and hurting. It takes our hands to give and hug someone in need.

So are you going to put your works next to your faith and help someone? It may be rewarded with footsteps from above someday!