Custom Kicks

I Peter 4:10 -- "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."

It is 11.3 miles from our house here in Saint Johns, to my husbands office in Jacksonville.  I know this number intimately because I walked it.  I could have kept ON walking, too ... if it weren't for my feet.  When it was all said and done and I managed to crawl into my rocker to soak my tootsies...the damage was almost unbelievable. My blisters had blisters! [I'm not making that up and I didn't even know that could happen, but trust me, it can.]  Each foot had no fewer than four -- count 'em -- FOUR blisters, ranging from the heels, to the outside of my arches and the balls of my feet.  Ouch!! One of the worst ones was over three inches long.  Again...OUCH!

Do you know why this happened?  I had the wrong shoes.  While they were an excellent brand and were carefully designed for people like me who really like to walk, they were old and didn't fit very well.  They had stretched out over time and had become too big...so friction had a field day. The right shoes MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!!

During a phone conversation with my Mom the other day I mentioned a couple thinks that had been running around unattended in my head.  I told her that as the daughter of missionary parents, who's Dad is ALSO a minister...I have some very large shoes to fill. I was telling her about the conversation that my previously mentioned amazing friend and I were having on just that exact subject. My Mom said the same thing that my amazing friend said: "You weren't called to walk in our shoes, you were called to wear your own."

So simple! So perfectly simple!  Wearing the right shoes really does make all the difference!  "Each one, should use whatever gift he has received". Galatians 6:5 even tells us each to carry our own load so we don't compare ourselves to others. I don't have to try to wear my parent's shoes, or my neighbors shoes or anybody's shoes but the ones God has instructed me to wear.

I think it's easy for us to compete with and compare ourselves to others. So often we we try to fit into another person's mold when that's really not what we are called to do.  Use your God given shoes whether they be spiky high heels, flip-flops, swim fins, or sneakers.  Each pair has a specific purpose to GOD'S purpose and we won't come away from our busy and hectic days with so many blisters if we wear the pair that He has designed for us to wear.

I just got this mental image of a model trying to walk the runway wearing swim fins.  Hilarious! [...and kinda' stupid?] How far do you think she's going to get to her purpose in those things?

...Nope....the right shoes make all the difference and God has gifted us each with a custom pair of kicks. They are a WHOLE lot more comfortable and effective than trying to squeeze our tootsies into a pair that just weren't designed for our feet.