I visited my youngest grandchildren last weekend.
We had lots of fun building things with Legos, reading books, and playing board games. But the most exciting thing was the trip to the shoe store to get new school shoes!
There is just something about new school shoes, isn’t there? They seem to signify all sorts of wonderful possibilities: a new school year with new friends and a new teacher, and new hopes for a wonderful year ahead.
My grandkids felt that same way. Suddenly their life seemed brighter and different somehow.
PC: Ann Kirsten
At first, they carried their shoes carefully in the cardboard boxes. They’d lift the lid and peek inside to make sure their treasures were still nestled inside. They reverently took them out and tied and retied the laces. They brushed off imagined lint and checked the clean soles.
After a while, keeping the shoes in the boxes wasn’t good enough. They took them out and put them on and took them off again. They talked about how careful they were going to be to keep them clean. And they looked at their old beat-up shoes with disgust. They looked quite awful in comparison to the new ones. The old ones had been through things, a lot of things. They had been in dark places, and the holes and rips and stains were proof of that. Whereas their old shoes had seemed fine only hours ago, suddenly they were unwearable, disgusting even.
Soon, they were beseeching their mom to wear the new ones. “We’ll be so careful!” they cried.
To their surprise, their mom said, “Who decided kids have to wait until school starts to wear their new shoes? That’s a very silly rule.”
Oh, the screams of excitement as they quickly laced up their shoes!
They were quite sure that anything and everything was possible now and that they were suddenly capable of amazing feats. They timed each other running down the sidewalk. Faster and faster times were celebrated. They practiced sudden stops, quite sure that the new shoes allowed them to change directions in an instant. They jumped high and did tricks on their bikes; they climbed trees and literally danced in the grass.
“but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.”
Isaiah 40:31
Life just seemed different, brighter somehow and full of hope and joy.
I had so much fun watching their antics and I wondered if God feels the same way when one of his children turns to Jesus. Do we look like children wearing new shoes as we celebrate the new hope and joy we find inside of us?
Life without Him is characterized by spiritual separation from God due to sin. It’s a life full of holes and rips and dirt (just like we’re wearing old shoes). Life “before” is dull and boring and more depressing than we even realize until we have the comparison of a new life.
Life after Jesus gives us renewed understanding, freedom from sin and a transformed existence. It gives us freedom to live a life honoring God. We trade our old “shoes” for new ones that take us down paths we’ve never traveled before. We leap from spiritual death to a deep and intimate relationship with God.
Our old life just doesn’t fit anymore. We have outgrown it.
Putting on the new shoes that come with loving Jesus truly does allow us to do things we couldn’t before. We can “run faster” and “jump higher”. And, although they might get smudged and even dirty at times, we have a loving Father who lets us wear them right away and forgives the messes we get ourselves into.
PIN THIS!
Read more of Ann’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
