Crystal Writes A Blog

I Got Shoes

Strong Shoes by Flickr User Corrie ten Boom Museum, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works
Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
I recommend a visit to this Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/corrietenboom/ It is filled with inspirational quotes from Corrie ten Boom.

“I’ve got shoes, they’re made of plywood…” is the beginning of a misheard lyric line from You’re the One that I Want out of the movie Grease. It’s only one of many misheard lines from songs that you kind find in books and online searches. But not all songs about shoes are misheard. There’s an old Johnny Cash song that says “all God’s children got shoes,” and then it says, “Gonna put on my shoes and walk all over God’s Heaven.” It’s a catchy tune, and you’ve probably heard it once or twice. If not, you can listen to it at YouTube, and you might even recognize it.

In today’s reading from Deuteronomy 2:31 through Deuteronomy 3:14, we won’t read about shoes, but we will read about what happens when God tells you where to walk. Moses is talking about when God prepared Israel to overtake Sihon, King of Heshbon. He relates how the king and all his people came out against Israel, but because Israel was acting in obedience to overtake the land as God directed, they defeated him, his sons, and all his people. Moses tells them how they took every city and utterly destroyed every city and its inhabitants, and that no city was too strong or walled high enough because God handed it all over to them.

There were cities that God said to stay away from because He had plans for them, so Israel obeyed and did not attack those places. But then God told them to turn up the road to Bashan and go against Og, the king of Bashan. Again, the king and all his people came out against them, and again Israel defeated them because God gave them victory. Israel defeated all sixty of the king’s cities even though they were highly fortified with walls, gates, and bars. In addition, they took many unprotected cities.

At the end of the battles, Moses tells how he divided the possessions of the cities among the tribes. The territory from Aroer at the edge of the valley to half the hill country of Gilead Moses gave to the sons of Reuben and Gad. The rest of Gilead he gave to the half tribe of Manasseh. The kingdom of Og was called the “kingdom of giants” because when they found Og’s iron bed, it measured about thirteen and a half by six feet. Now that’s one huge guy, and you better know that God is with you before you go after someone like that.

Life is filled with giants and battles that God wants to give us victory over, but we must trust God to arm us, train us, and suit us up for battle before we can fight effectively. We can’t look at our own weaknesses because it will turn our focus away from God and toward our situation. It’s just like when Peter obeyed Jesus and walked on the water; he didn’t start to sink until he took his eyes off of Jesus and put them on the waves instead. The world is God’s to give, so if He says to do battle and overtake the enemy, it’s only because He has already planned our victory and the enemy’s defeat.

The song says, “I got shoes, you got shoes,” and we do. Ephesians 6:14-16 (in the Common English Bible) says it this way…

^“So stand with the belt of truth around your waist, justice as your breastplate, and put shoes on your feet so that you are ready to spread the good news of peace. Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

We have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and we can walk through (and out of) any valley of defeat on this earth and keep walking until we’re stepping on Heaven’s streets of gold.

July 24, 2014 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | battle, Bible Commentary, Bible study, Complete Jewish Bible, Deuteronomy, Israel, Moses, Scripture, shoes, Torah Portions, victory | 2 Comments