The Boy with the Wrong Shoes

The Christmas season is often filled with much anticipation and build-up. Many spend at least a month getting ready for the big day. Whether it’s decorating the tree and the house, buying and wrapping presents, or making plans with family and friends; the month of December can be a whirlwind. However, it is easy for the days and weeks following to be a colossal let down. The reason is we can easily put so much hope in the lights, the decorations, the gifts, and reconnecting with family and friends that we trick ourselves into believing that it will last forever. Yet, we know that it doesn’t. The 26th comes around and it’s all over. We realize that now we have to take down all those decorations and put them in storage, and that’s not nearly as exciting as putting them up. The excitement of the gifts we received quickly wears off and we’re on to wanting the next thing that we are so easily deceived to believe will make us whole. The 26th also signals that its time for everyone to head home and get back to work. Reality sets in and then the crushing realization that everything we put so much hope in didn’t deliver. We often go year after year repeating this same cycle.

I remember when this reality first hit me. It was 1993, and I was in the 4th grade. The school year had begun with the disappointing realization that I had the “wrong shoes”. One thing that hasn’t changed in 16 years is that the signature shoes of professional athletes were very important to the guys I went to school with. However, in 1993 it wasn’t LeBron James or Steph Curry that had the shoe everyone wanted. It was Deion Sanders. In the early 90’s, Deion Sanders was a hero for many sports-loving young boys in the state of Georgia because he played for both the Braves and Falcons. I remember showing up on the first day of school and seeing his shoes on the feet of at least 5 boys in my class. I knew then and there that I had to have those shoes. Those were the “right shoes” and I definitely had the “wrong shoes”. There was no way I was getting a pair. I already had a pair of shoes for the new school year, so my best shot was Christmas. I spent the entire first half of the school year thinking about those shoes. I was jealous everyday at P.E. when the lucky few that had them could pretend to be Deion Sanders. The waiting was terrible.

Finally, Christmas day came, and there was a pair of Nike Diamond Turfs worn by Deion Sanders himself, sitting under the tree. I finally had the right shoes! For the first time in my life, I was excited to go back to school. I imagined walking into my classroom and being a part of the club with the right shoes. I will never forget walking into that classroom and being hit with a devastating reality. Half a year had passed, and there were newer and better shoes. Now those boys who had the shoes of my dreams at the beginning of the year had moved on to Charles Barkley’s signature shoe. I realized in that moment that once again, I had the wrong shoes.

This is obviously a silly story about a little boy in grips of materialism. However, it was at the time a clear moment where I realized that I had put all my hope in something that couldn’t deliver. This same story has replayed itself over and over in my life. The only difference is that the idol changed. It changed from shoes to other material possessions, or even what others thought of me. The outcome was always the same, incredible disappointment and a sense of lostness. I’m reminded of Jeremiah 2:12-13,

               “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked and utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

That is exactly what these idols were, whether shoes or relationships. They were broken cisterns that could hold no water. The good news for me and anyone who has chased broken cistern after broken cistern is that in Christ, living water is offered to anyone who will receive it. Water that will forever quench our thirst.

This is what we celebrate in Advent. In the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our thirst can be forever quenched. Because in His first Advent, He took on flesh and lived a life of sinless perfection, and He went to the cross to pay for sin, and He rose on the 3rd day victorious over Satan, sin, and death. We can turn from our broken cisterns and put our trust completely in Him. We can live in the joy of knowing that through faith in Him we are by pure grace declared to be forgiven, children of God who have been welcomed into His Kingdom. We also await His 2nd Advent. When He returns and everything that is broken is made right. Where His people are welcomed into a place where sickness, sadness, and death are no more. Where pain and tears are no more. Where we see Him face to face and are filled with a joy that can’t be taken and lasts for all eternity.