By Jerry D. Ousley
I remember a time when we had a gathering at my parent’s house. It was several years ago, before my mother went to be with Jesus. Nearly everyone left their shoes at the door and it was a huge pile of shoes. The room was full of sock-footed kids and adults having a good time.
But I didn’t take my shoes off. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to; it was because I had enormously gigantic holes in my socks. I was embarrassed for people to see me in my socks with my heel hanging out on one and my toes dangling from another. I remember being very uncomfortable because I was the only one in the room with my shoes on. I knew I should have put on a better pair of socks!
Many cultures require one to remove their shoes before entering into their homes. It is a sign of respect to the homeowner. Here in our country, it is mostly a sign of getting comfortable, although many households require visitors to remove their shoes so as not to get the carpet dirty.
Moses got told by God to take his shoes off. You can read the incident in Exodus 3:5. He had noticed a bush burning but not being consumed. When he went to get a closer look, he found that God Himself was the fire in that bush. As Moses approached God audibly spoke to him and first instructed him to take off his shoes because he was standing in the presences of the most holy God. Stephen referred to this when he was talking to the Jewish leaders right before they stoned him to death (Acts 7:33), and Joshua got told to do the same thing when the Commander of the Army of the Lord appeared to him as they prepared to take Jericho (Joshua 5:15).
Removing our shoes is symbolic first of all, of respecting God. When we gather for worship, whether it be in a formal building, a group in a home, or just sitting under a tree, we must remember that we are entering into the presence of God. I suppose we should rephrase that a bit; we are preparing our hearts and freeing up our minds to realize that God is in our midst. You see, God is everywhere. I’m not saying that all nature is God, but I am saying that God is omnipresent – He’s everywhere at the same time. He is always near us.
But we get busy with our daily duties and forget about God. We have so much to do that we just don’t take time to realize that He is right there with us. When we get together to worship our great, wonderful God we need to free our minds and realize that He is there. In a sense, we are taking off our shoes in respect to God.
There is another thing that we are doing; we are relaxing our hearts and minds, freeing ourselves of all those daily tasks that we make for ourselves in order to, in a way, get comfortable with God. I don’t mean that irrespectively at all. I’m not saying that we should ever take God for granted and treat Him like an old buddy. But we can become comfortable in the presence and awe of our magnificent, glorious, Father God.
Being comfortable means that those we are comfortable with are familiar. We can let down our guard with them. We can be ourselves. We don’t have to be afraid that we are going to offend them. And in a sense, we should be that way with God. Never disrespectful but always we should know that He has our best interest in mind and we can be free in His presence.
We spiritually remove our shoes because we respect the Great Holy God and we also remove our shoes because we are going to stay awhile. We are respectively comfortable with our Father. We can worship Him and our spirits can become familiar with Him. We get to know Him. And when we do, all those cares that we will eventually have to go back to suddenly don’t seem as big as they were before. We can calmly take care of them because we have been with Jesus.
So, go ahead; remove those shoes, kick back and enjoy spending some time with God. And then go out a conquer your world!
Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.
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