adventure shoes

A couple weeks ago, I went to Chicago with my family and bought my first pair of Toms. First of all, I love these new shoes because they are extremely comfortable with great arch support. Second of all, I love these shoes because for every pair you buy, the Toms organization gives a pair to a child in need. Third of all, I love these shoes because they can be worn with jeans OR with a sundress. Flexibility, my friends, is an incredible thing.


But most importantly, I love what these shoes symbolize to me. Call me an emotional girl if you want, but these Toms actually have great significance in my daily life and remind me of some pretty amazing facts.


1.) I have always had this beautiful vision that Christ, garments soaked in blood, welcomes ME, garments dirtied, into his arms and embraces me. When I back away, my garments are covered with His blood. I am forgiven. His blood has literally covered me. And until I actually see Christ face to face and realize His forgiveness fully, these red shoes that cover my feet are a little reminder to me that wherever I go, whatever I do, I am covered in Christ's blood. Wherever I travel, I am forgiven. Wherever I wander or run, Christ is there with me and I am loved. The bright red color of these Toms reminds me of that.


2.) Because of the grace and forgiveness that I see in the color red, these shoes also remind me to follow Jesus wherever I am going on my journey.


"'Come, let us go up to the mountain
      of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us about His ways
so we may walk in His paths'...
For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts
has promised this:
Though all the peoples each walk
in the name of their gods [now],
we will walk in the name of Yahweh
   our God
forever and ever."
                      - Micah 4:2, 4-5


I love these verses. With every step I take in these shoes (and every other pair that I own), I am walking in the name of Yahweh. The footnotes in my Bible call this walk "a life in covenant with the Lord". Wherever I go on my journey with Christ, may I be reminded that I have made a covenant with Him- a covenant to follow Him alone and to walk in His name alone!


And I can only assume that as I realize God's love and grace for me and as I follow His ways by remembering our covenant, adventure will never be far off from where I am. I mean, Jesus was not a lethargic and comfortable guy. He talked to those who no one else talked to and He healed those that no one else would touch. THAT is the true adventure, friends! The true adventure is following Jesus in such a way that He leads you into a radical relationship with Him- a relationship that naturally brings you to do crazy things that the world would never consider. Like eating dinner with a tax collector and talking to an adulteress.


Adventure happens when Jesus loves me radically, I love Jesus radically, and I can then in turn love people radically.


May I always walk God's way, confident in His forgiveness and love. And may I always be grateful for the meaningless items that can become symbols, even in a very tiny way, of those things. Like red Toms.

trust (again)

Why is it so hard to completely trust God? Why do we as humans think that trust is some sort of ability- a skill that must be honed to perfection before it can be utilized? 


Perhaps it is because it gives us an excuse to avoid using that 'tool' until it has arrived at perfection- which we know will never happen (but that's the point of excuses, isn't it?). So, we never fully trust God because, honestly, we don't think that we think we know how, and we know that we don't know all there is to know about it. Two words: so what?


Why do we have this conception that God only wants us to do what He calls us to if it is in a perfect way? "I shouldn't witness to my co-worker yet; I don't have that one track memorized yet." "I don't want to start reading through that book of the Bible yet- I don't think I have time to read a chapter everyday." Trust me, God would much rather have our co-workers hear the Gospel now than in several months when we have finally gotten around to memorizing that track; God wants us to enjoy reading His word- He doesn't necessarily ask us to hold to the legalism of reading the Bible at a certain time every morning. After all, God opens up opportunities to witness and to read and to love because He wants us to trust HIM in those situations instead of relying on our own imperfections and inconsistencies. 


In the same way, we cannot wait to trust God until we completely understand Him or until we completely understand trust, one, because we never will do either and two, because our God is a god of believing and trusting Him in the NOW. God is trustable whether or not we trust Him, yet He wants a relationship with us that includes trust. 



 "You will keep in perfect peace
    the mind [that is] dependent [on You],
    for it is trusting in You.
  Trust in the LORD forever,
    because in Yah, the LORD, is an everlasting rock!"
                                 -Isaiah 26:3-4


This is one of my favorite verses. God is an unchanging rock- firm and steady and faithful and true. We have no reason NOT to trust in Him today! We should have no doubt that He will continually show us how to trust Him more fully. 
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"Hezekiah trusted in the LORD God of Israel; not one of the kings of Judah was like him, either before him or after him.  He held fast to the LORD and did not turn from following Him but kept the commandments the LORD had commanded Moses."
                                - 2 Kings 18:5-6

oh, just read a book

I was listening to someone talk the other day about how to connect with youth. He recommended certain books and videos for those who aren't often able to observe the radicals frequently. At first, I was slightly offended. The older generations want to learn about my generation- about ME- via generalization and stereotypes in videos and books? They want to learn from a secondary source instead of simply asking any 'youth' what they think about their own culture?

Then I realized that this idea of reading a book or watching a video to constantly build up knowledge instead of acting is nothing new. I mean, I do it practically all the time. I can't go there, do that, talk to that person, etc, because I do not know enough yet. I don't want to ask my friend with a different religion about their religion firsthand because that might be offensive and I don't want to look stupid. I can't try to communicate with the Hispanic at my work place because I need to learn more Spanish first.

Why is that? Why can't I use the knowledge and gifts that God has given me right now, at this moment, to begin impacting the people around me, instead of waiting to feel better equipped?

In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man. The Pharisees question the healed man about Jesus and what he knows about Him, and this is how the conversation continues:


 ²⁵ He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
 ²⁶ Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
 ²⁷ He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”
 ²⁸ Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! ²⁹ We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
 ³⁰ The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. ³² Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
 ³⁴ To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

-John 9:25-34

Isn't it amazing that the blind man who was JUST introduced to Jesus' power and goodness understands more about Him than the Pharisees? The blind man physically interacted with Jesus and then understood how He could not possibly be a sinner. The Pharisees, for all their book knowledge and studying, still did not understand this!

May I not be a Pharisee. May I choose to learn directly by interacting with people and touching their lives instead of basing my world view on books that I have read that are written by people I will never meet. The people around me are walking stories that I need to learn to listen to.

Understand, I am not saying that reading books or watching informational videos is a bad thing. But I pray that I never learn to stereotype people, religions, or anything else by what I learn via those resources. Generalization is a dangerous thing. The beggar realized that Jesus wasn't just another sinner because he had an actual encounter with Jesus and was open.

Be open. Make encounters. Change lives. Don't just read books about ideas and religions, ask the people involved directly.

"ONE thing I do know. I once was blind, but now I see."
- the beggar.

I guess that's all I really need to know to effectively change lives.