When a group of people come together, they come together with a purpose. Something to stand up for, defend, and refuse to back down from. As a community, our group of apprentices decided to define what we stood for, what was important to us.
And boy did we come up a list! Things like
Be an open gate, not a wall.
Positivity
Walk in victory
Have joy in the storm
Walk in uncomfortability
Vulnerability
Eyes on da prize
Centered in Prayer
And one the Lord laid on my heart was ‘walking with bare feet’
I was a little puzzled at first when the Lord gave me a picture of bare feet walking through a forest full of twigs, pine cones, rocks, and more covering the ground. So I asked God what He wanted me to understand about it and reminded me of Moses taking off his sandals when he approached the burning bush:
“Then he said, ‘Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’”
Exodus 3:5
God reminded me of my desire to always take my shoes off when I worship because I am entering into His presence. Holy ground exists where He has made His presence known. But we are sometimes quick to forget that God’s presence is always with us because He dwells within us:
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Romans 8:9
So why do I limit bare feet to only times of worship?
God is always with me, so I am always in His presence, therefore I should always be barefoot.
But being barefoot is uncomfortable. There are countless excuses to keep my shoes on: it’s too cold outside; it’s too hot and the ground burns my feet; the gravel hurts; my feet are getting dirty, etc. All valid excuses for comfort…but what happens when we stay barefoot? Our feet start to get rough, the skin thickens, calluses build up, our feet get ugly, what was once uncomfortable starts to get comfortable.
And this is what God calls us to do: Step into uncomfortability. Step into fire. Step into the cold. Step on the gravel that scrapes our feet and makes us bleed. As we step into those things, God will toughen us up. As He puts rough patches in front of us and we choose to step right onto those jagged rocks, He will thicken our skin if we keep pressing into it. Soon, those small, annoying pebbles will no longer bother us. Sure, there will be a sharp twig that scrapes our foot, we can still fall and hurt ourselves, we can twist our ankle. But we will recover. We will heal and a smooth path will lie ahead, even if it’s only for a few steps. When we step out and build up those calluses, when we fall and try to get back up, we will still have tough feet to continue on our way. Our feet will become resistant to the hot ground so we don’t react by running. We have a foundation of tough skin to protect us from the little things in order to address the hard stuff.
I’m choosing to let God in on the little things so the big things don’t seem so scary. I’m going to let Him thicken the soles of my feet so I don’t overreact to the heat in a situation.
I’m going to walk with bare feet.
