Only your inner compass can point you in the right direction, over the right terrain. Maybe others want you to stay on flat land that poses no challenges, but you want to climb a mountain. Maybe others tell you to swim in a pool, but you want to encounter an ocean. Follow the inner compass of your own mind, heart, and soul, your own dreams and aspirations. Whether your dreams are big or small, they are yours. And they wait for you to live them.
Don't bother looking at the footprints to your left and to your right. Yes, those persons are traveling towards God as well, and you may be tempted to walk in their footprints. But their mountain of troubles is not yours. Your ocean of joy is not theirs. They rest beside different pools of prayer and the sound of God's voice in their ear is not the sound you hear. God speaks to each of us with words meant for our hearts alone, and He shows us where to place our footprints.
Our own footprints lead us to lands where we'll experience God's love bursting like bright fireworks in our hearts. Lands where we'll look up and see Jesus the Morning Star glowing to guide us forward in hope. Lands where when darkness falls, the Holy Spirit's faithful hand leads us, protecting us from falling into a pit of despair or being wounded by the thorns and nettles of temptation.
Indeed how good is the Lord. Eternal His merciful love. He is faithful from age to age. When we listen to God as we make our own footprints, we will not be misled by human beings. We will not give in to humans' threatening words. We will not be thrown off-course by the lies of those who are malicious when we are trying to be and do good. We will not give up and turn around when others say we cannot possibly succeed, for we know that God has given us a mission and pointed us in the right direction.
If we take only one step to make our own footprints, God will give us the power and courage to move forward. God will cleave through rock when there are bleak cliffs of bitterness in front of us. God will maneuver us around the death-dealing quicksand of depression. We will cross mountains of anxiety as God flutes songs of joy in our hearts.
Make your own footprints. Where they lead, only you can go. Only you can care for the ones you meet along the way. Only you can discover the love waiting to fill and re-fill your heart in an endless fountain. Only you can find out that God's dreams for you are infinitely greater than your own. Because God believes in you so much that He only made one of you. You are enough for the mission He wants to accomplish in you and through you and with you. You are powerful, unique, of infinite worth. Your footprints are your own, if you only have the courage and enthusiasm and trust in God to claim them.