As a child, the sadness of the summer holidays coming to an end was always tempered by the excitement of buying new things for school, and especially buying a new pair of shoes. There’s just something very wonderful about a pair of shoes that have never been worn.
The problem, though, was that I wanted to keep my shoes in their original condition. The idea that the soles would get dirty or that the uppers would get scuffed filled me with dismay. For the first few days I would keep checking to make sure they were still clean and quickly get rid of any marks. But as the days went by and the scuffs kept coming I resigned myself to the inevitability of their decay. After all I reasoned, when they’re worn out they’ll be another new pair to replace them.
As with shoes so with life. Every life starts in mint condition and how wonderful it would be if we could keep it that way. But inevitably every life picks up scuffs and marks as the years go by. Some despair that when the damage is done all is lost. By contrast the hope and the promise of Christ, is that no matter how damaged we may become there is always the hope of renewal.
