Excuse me, your shoes are untied....

Most of you know I have been blessed to have a 6 yr old in my household.  Being the last in the line of 5 boys and being 7 years younger than his next brother, you can imagine I have a tendency to baby him a bit.  Of course, having 4 teenage brothers he doesn't realize he's actually 6 and not 16, but that's another story. (I'll never forget the first time he called me "Dude"! I think he was 4!) Because I don't in any way push him to grow up, beyond learning to dress himself and forgo the need for diapers, I was happy to leave him in velcro fastening shoes from now till time to dress for the prom.  However, retailers have chosen a different path for me.

Not long ago, as Scamp scampered off the bus one afternoon, he stopped in the middle of the street and turned back a couple of steps.  It was then I realized he had lost his shoe and had gone back to retrieve it. When he climbed in the back seat I could see he had lost it because the velcro strap had broken.  I wired it together with a twist tie from the bread bag (true story!) to hold him through the evening.  After all, it wasn't like we were going to meet the queen, we were just going to run some errands.  His dad took him to buy some new shoes the next day without me, which is always an interesting happening in itself.  Imagine my surprise when I talked to the Commander on the phone only to hear a very upset 6 yr old in the background who was not shy about vocally expressing his disapproval.  It seems Scamp's feet had grown to the point no one actually made tennis shoes with velcro straps to fit him.  Yes, he was stuck in the place between toddlers with droopy diapers and old men with droopy pants, these being the only people who actually wear velcroed shoes.  So it seemed it was time for a shoe tying lesson. It took a while to convince my cranky, stubborn, lovely little child

How many of us need a lesson in tying our shoes? How many times do we walk around with our feet shod with the gospel of peace but our shoes untied? I would say trust would be the laces that keep those particular shoes on our feet.  It doesn't matter how much you paid for your fancy walking shoes that pump air into the soles and promise to give you a nicer...uhhmmm, behind, if you forget to tie them, they are not going to stay on your feet.  The word promises us we can walk in the peace of God, but I believe we have a part in that.  Romans 15:13 tells us ...the God of all hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him...  We can learn from this passage we can be filled with all joy and peace as we trust in Him.  In my life there have been many times when I've had to stop and retrace my steps, just as Scamp did that day in the street, in order to retrieve my shoes.  I have been guilty of looking to myself and not trusting in Him and that has left me with untied laces.

So, tie those shoes up tight. Lean on Him and put your trust in Him and He'll keep your feet shod with the gospel of peace.  That's good news to me in my hectic life.  The next time life hands you heartache, trauma, disappointment, or just a whirlwind of annoyance remember to check to be sure your shoes are well tied, I don't think the Bible mentions anything about velcro.