Wearing Old Shoes

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     John 6:30 says, “ They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?”

     For the past 3 years, I have worn just one shoe.  At first, it was only on the left foot and for the past 2 years, it has been on the right foot.  You can’t buy just one shoe.  You have to buy a pair of them, one for each foot.  When they cleaned out the house to get it ready for sale, I had perhaps ten pairs of shoes of different styles and for different purposes from boots to slippers.  I recall hearing of some rather wealthy women who actually had 6,000 pairs of shoes.  

     We live in a “throw away” society where instead of reusing something, we just throw it away and get another one either like it or a new model with more features.  I once tried to get a refill for a ball point pen that  I liked, but they were not available in the office supply store and the pen itself was so cheap that  it was just as convenient to purchase a new one and throw away the old one.

     The israelites in the wilderness were in a rather precarious situation.  Due to their sin, they were destined to walk around for forty years until the complete generation died off with the exception of Joshua and Caleb.  They believed God but the majority of the people didn’t.  The above passage reminds us that God still took care of the entire group of people which could have been about a million and a half with women and children counted.   Manna was supplied by God every morning except on the Sabbath.  The word “manna” means basically, “What is this stuff.”  It must have had a sweet taste as they said it was like honey and coriander seed and in the form of a wafer.  God supplied the manna until they arrived in the promised land and then they ate of the produce of the land.  There were other miraculous events such as getting enough water out of a rock to feet both the group and the livestock.  They also had shoes that did not wear out for the entire forty years.  Imagine that!.  No Sears and Roebuck or J.C. Penneys to get a couple of extra pairs of shoes.  No rubber tires to make sandals from.  God took care of them throughout their journey and the examples that took place for the entire forty years have become lessons for us today.  God does miraculous things when they are needed such as vessels of oil and flour that don’t run out, oil in lamps that keep burning for days on end, water from rocks, parting the Red Sea and the Jordan River and bread from heaven that if you get too much, it will spoil, except on Friday when you can get a double portion to cover the Sabbath but does not spoil.  We often say, “With God, all things are possible.”  It  is a quote and therefore a true statement that God is able and often performs the miraculous and we don’t see it  Praise God today for even the unseen things that He is doing in your life.