Them Shoes Gotta Go

There ain’t nothing like a good pair of shoes!  Man, I got some foot problems! I hate it.  I finally found some good shoes.  Then I started changing my lifestyle.  I began to eat better, drink more water, move more, and strength train.  After starting these things those shoes which took me so long to find started messing up my feet.  I didn’t know what to do.  I kept wearing them thinking that I was the problem.  I started thinking “I gotta start walking different” I also thought, “Maybe it's because my feet getting too dry.”  After the pain got so intense, I just stopped wearing the shoes and started wearing my crocks.

The crocks definitely helped.  The pain I was having slowly began to go away.  The sores that developed on my feet finally started to disappear (with a little help from some good ole lotion).  I began to feel the relief.  But after some time those shoes weren’t fitting right either. 

I recently had knee surgery about a year ago, (I don’t know if that's considered recent anymore) and walking has been a bit different.  I had to relearn how to walk and combined with the weight loss, my walking pattern had been a bit different.  I actually think I am walking better!  But my crocks, which I had been walking in for a while now, were supinated. Since i was walking on the outside of my foot my knee was having to support more of my body and this was very painful.  Definitely something I had to change.  

I went and bought some shoes that the doctor said were the best for feet.  These were definitely comfortable but they were a bit squishy.  They felt good to walk around in but they were just not what my knee wanted.  (I have to listen to my body as they say!) I tried one last shoe out.  Man they are phenomenal!  They are so comfortable!  Have you ever had something fit so well you just can’t stop thinking about how great it is?  That’s  these shoes.  

As life changed for me, so did my shoes.  As I began to take care of myself better, I needed new shoes.  The old shoes just didn’t cut it anymore.  Matter of fact, those shoes were making life worse.  I wanted to keep them because those shoes had done so well for me.  They helped me in a time where I thought I would never be able to walk without pain.  They relieved the pain.  But them shoes had to go.  

That's how it is in a life with Christ.  As we move closer to the LORD, the things we thought were so helpful we find are actually harmful to the new lifestyle we are called to walk in.  The old patterns and ways we used to live in don’t fit right anymore.  And those patterns and lifestyles at the time probably seemed like they were the best thing going.  They gave us comfort and happiness when we felt like there was none in sight. But then we found the LORD.  We found where true happiness, joy, love, and contentment comes from.  So now we got to drop the fake stuff. It’s hard to do, and it takes effort and time.  But let me tell you it's worth it. 

Today, fully embrace the love of God.  Put away all those former things. Fall 100% into all that he has in store and leave behind the known and walk into the unfathomable depths of his goodness and grace.  There’s no better feeling than that which only can come from the LORD.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11

Forget the former things;  do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, Philippians 3:13