FEET

Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace! Celebrate your feasts, O Judah; Pay your vows. For never again will the wicked one pass through you; He is cut off completely. Nahum 1:15 NAS95

How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!"

Romans 10:15 NAS95

I have big feet. If you have met me in person you know that fact. If you have read enough of my musings you possibly know that. My foot measures one foot. It is a foot, foot. When I was a young man, 21 or 22 years old, I helped my dad pour concrete for a basement floor. My tennis shoes kept getting stuck in the mix, so I took my shoes and socks off and went barefoot. (Warning: Do Not Try This at Home, or anywhere else for that matter!)

The chemicals in the concrete mix ate the skin off the tops of my feet. It hurt, a lot, and left me with scars on my feet that are visible to this day. Because my feet grew so rapidly as a child my shoes often were too small and I have hammer toes because of it. When I read the passage behind todays musing I have mixed emotions. I don’t have beautiful feet. I have ugly feet. I would love beautiful feet.

My wife has beautiful feet. Always has, probably always will. We pastored a church where the women of the church dared not wear open toed shoes, because a young man in the church would get aroused if he saw women’s toes; (I have no idea why I am telling you this, but I have to laugh a bit inside when I think about it.)

This passage is not about whether you have big ugly feet like mine, or beautiful, tiny feet like my wife. It is about the messenger.

Who is the primary messenger of the Good News of Jesus Christ in your life? Your Pastor, a TV Preacher, your Spouse, the disturbed thinker behind the keyboard writing this musing? I would suggest that it really doesn’t matter who it is, as long as the message is the Good News from God’s Word.

That being said, how are your feet? Are they beautiful in the sense that you are carrying the message of Good News to the world? Just about every organization you interact with wants you to tell the good news of that organization. Buy a new car and many dealers will give you money for referrals that result in a car sale. Buy most anything that requires a contract and the sales person will try to leverage your purchase into advertising of their product. Every time I buy ink for my ten-year-old printer the vendor wants me to spend 3-5 minutes answering a survey so they can tell the world that RWM loves their ink. I don’t take surveys any more.

When I carry a message of good news, I want the message to be THE GOOD NEWS. I want someone, somewhere, to say something about the beautiful feet of the messenger who brings The Good News of Jesus and the salvation available through His shed blood.

If there is anything that disturbs me about this passage it is that too many times in my life people would not be able to say “how beautiful are his feet, he has brought Good News.” It is my failure to always be a messenger with beautiful feet that bugs me.

I dare you to take your shoes and socks off right now, if you have some on. Take a good look at your bare feet. See them as the resource to carry the Good News of God’s Love into the world. Are they beautiful feet? If not, I hope you get a bit disturbed for Jesus today.

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38 NAS95