I never really paid much attention to dealing with my shoes until I began having hips and knees replaced. In going through the process of six total joint replacement surgeries, my feet seemed to move south on me like retiring New Yorkers. They somehow became unreachable, and dealing with my shoes demanded more attention and conscious thought than I had ever devoted to them previously. I mention that because I would have thought that God probably didn’t pay much attention to shoes either, but apparently that’s not the case. In certain situations, such as that exchange with Moses at the burning bush, God evidently considers shoes to be rather important. And because He almost always has a broader purpose underlying the actions He takes and includes lessons beyond the moment in the messages He delivers, there are questions worth asking about God’s occasional sensitivity about shoes.
Resist the Programming ~
But let’s begin our quest by resisting our cultural conditioning. Our button-pushing, content-belching, video-vomiting, digital culture has programmed us to expect to have our curiosity satisfied immediately. We’re used to presenting a handful of key words to the glowing Wizard
on our lap, and in microseconds, it produces hundreds of millions of potential answers with the top ten displayed on the screen in front of us. But in case you haven’t noticed, God doesn’t work that way. He loves our questions, but refuses to contribute to our growing intellectual paralysis and spiritual laziness by serving as our ‘spiritual search engine’.
Instead, He uses our questions to draw us closer to Him – and then He’ll use our curiosity as a means of leading us toward life changing discoveries. God loves our fellowship, and to Him, every question is a potential adventure He can undertake with us. Every frustrating, confusing, or even irritating issue is a puzzle He wants to unravel with us. Every conundrum is a mystery He wants to investigate with us. So, let’s turn our Google-ized minds over to Him as we set out to explore this issue about shoes and see what lessons might be waiting to be discovered.
A Familiar Story ~
The first of two Biblical “shoe episodes” is the familiar account we mentioned earlier. Moses, a Jewish refugee from Egyptian justice, was alone in the desert and saw a bush that was on fire but not being consumed. Naturally, he felt compelled to check it out, but as he approached it, God stopped him and demanded that he take his shoes off. The text reads like this:
So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. (Exodus 3:4–6) NKJV
The second story involved Moses’ designated successor, Joshua. In his case, God’s redeemed people had just experienced their second miraculous parting of waters when God divided the Jordan and led them through on dry ground. But after passing through Jordan’s floodwaters and entering their Promised Land, they were facing a major military engagement at Jericho. After apparently going aside for some “alone time” prior to the impending battle, Joshua looked up and saw an imposing figure of a man standing nearby with a drawn battle sword in his hand. With obvious concern, Joshua approached what he thought was an intruding warrior and said:
“Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He [the Angel of the Lord] said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” (Joshua 13:13-14) NKJV
Not Just Another Swordsman~
Joshua almost certainly didn’t realize at first that the man he was approaching was the one 
described in the text as the Angel of the Lord. That term is a Hebraic expression referring to the pre-incarnate Christ. As Joshua approached the divine Warrior to hear what He had to say, like his predecessor, Moses, he was stopped. Before delivering the message He came to convey, the new Commander of God’s forces said this:
The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:15) NIV
Joshua complied, of course, and the Heavenly Commander proceeded to promise victory and to outline the most unusual battle plan ever devised.
And the Lord said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. (Joshua 6:2) NKJV
More to Discover ~
If God has a larger purpose underlying the things He does and lessons beyond the moment in every message He delivers, then we might expect that it applies to these incidents as well, and indeed it does. Woven into these accounts, including a command about shoes, are principles God wants us to see, attitudes He wants us to adopt, and behaviors He wants us to practice, but the first step is to recognize the context in which that command was delivered.
In both instances God chose to show up at a time when His people were in circumstances that were untenable and pitted against forces that were overwhelming. A major national transition was about to unfold and uncertainty was pervasive. It was also a time when God’s idolatrous adversaries were mocking Him and defiling the honor of His name. This was the backdrop against which God showed up in an unprecedented way, revealed Himself to men unprepared for the task ahead, and called them to carry out a strategy that sounded unreasonable and inadequate. Hmmm… Do you wonder if any of that could possibly apply to us?
Another Untenable Situation ~
It’s clear to anyone not living in a cave with no wifi, or in some kind of coma, that our nation is facing a major transition politically and perhaps in many other ways, as well. Changes are
coming that could affect us in many ways, and we have no way of knowing exactly what those changes will be. What we do know is that as the upcoming election draws nearer, the tension increases. It’s a time that’s tailor-made for God to show up in unprecedented ways to unprepared people and call them to engage an overwhelming adversary with an unreasonable strategy. And doesn’t that sound just like God?
We’ll get to the part about the sandals, but there’s something that comes first. The sandals didn’t become an issue until the wearers began to move closer. We may not witness unconsumed, burning shrubbery, but there are strange and unnatural things happening in our day, too. Are we willing to move closer to investigate what they might mean, or prefer to just post a video on Instagram or Tik Tok and go merrily on our way? The Commander of God’s Army is nearby again and His battle sword is drawn because there’s an enemy to engage. Are we willing to move closer and ask what He has to say to us, specifically, or do we prefer to just back and hope we’re on the right side?
God has already done enough to get our attention, and He’s moved close enough to be approachable. Now He waits to see if we’re willing to step onto the ground He stands on and into His presence to hear the life-changing words He has to say to us. The next move … Well, that one’s ours.
For now, and until next week, we might take some time to ponder the questions outlined below:
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- The ground was holy because God was standing on it. Where is that holy ground today?
- What made the shoes a problem?
- What changed when the shoes came off?
- God had a personal message for both Moses and Joshua. What message does He have for you?
We hope you’re available to join us for our second installment as we continue our quest to understand why God prefers to meet with us ‘barefooted’.
“TWEETABLES” ~ Click to tweet and share from the pull quotes below. Each one links directly back to this article through Twitter . . .
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- In case you haven’t noticed, God doesn’t work that way. He loves our questions, but refuses to contribute to our growing intellectual paralysis and spiritual laziness by serving as our ‘spiritual search engine’. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- Woven into these two accts, including a command about shoes, are principles God wants us to see, attitudes He wants us to adopt, behaviors He wants us to practice, but the first step is to recognize the context in which that command was delivered. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- It’s a time that’s tailor-made for God to show up in unprecedented ways to unprepared people and call them to engage an overwhelming adversary with an unreasonable strategy … and doesn’t that sound just like God? @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- God has moved close enough to be approachable. Now He waits to see if we’re willing to step onto the ground He stands on and into His presence to hear the life-changing words He has to say to us. So the next move … Well, that one’s ours. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
Gallagher's Pen ~ 
I haven’t had any joint replacements, Ron, but I still need shoes that give me both comfort and support, i.e., Skechers Slip-Ins; no bending, no laces, no fuss, no muss. But God wants to give us all the comfort and support we will ever need in life. We need to depend fully upon Him to keep us honest and fair and balanced when faced with the evils in this world, acknowledging that He alone is our eternal hope.
I will certainly be thinking about His holy ground and His command to remove our shoes before moving toward Him. I can’t help but remember President Trump, right after the assassination attempt, demanding that the Secret Service let him put his shoes back on. Did these folks take them off in anticipation of a needed stretcher, or did the Lord knock those shoes off because His holy ground had just surrounded Trump with the miraculous protection of His mighty hand in that moment? President Trump has said repeatedly that God intervened in that very moment, and has thanked Him publicly. May we, too, know when we need to remove our shoes, and our pride and our assumptions as these days unfold.
Blessings always!
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You always put smiles on our faces, Martha. You find different ways to do it, but hearing from you is always an uplifting point in any of our days. I loved your comments about the shoes and I’m with you re. finding ways to make putting them on and taking them off as convenient as possible. I haven’t tried the Sketchers slip-ins because my instep is too high for me to easily be able to use them. Sketchers are my favorite shoes, though. Even without the being able to just step into them,theiy’re sitll easier to deal with and feel better than anything else I’ve tried.
And I also loved that reaction to President Trump’s shoes after the assassination attempt and about God’s direct intervention. I do believe that did intervene in that incident, and that it was for more than his life alone–not that it wouldn’t have been a good thing on that basis, but there are things at stake in this election that go beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetime, or maybe in our country’s history. As you and Danny know, there are policies the opposition candidates support that will gut our personal freedoms, deny our Christian liberties, strip parents of even more of their rights, slaughter millions more babies, fuel more inflation, tax our beleaguered middle class into abject poverty, and probably send us into wars we cannot or will not win. Uh-oh… there I go again.
I don’t mean to climb on my soapbox and unload on you. I know you don’t need to hear that from me. You and Danny are not among the uninformed sheep that refuse to listen to the issues. More importantly, I know that you guys are prayer warriors and fearless in your stance for God’s truth and willing to declare it in whatever waythe Spirit of God leads you to do. Thanks once again for your response and for being such a treasured long distance friend. We love you guys and continue to pray for you and your family.
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