Old Shoes, New Shoes

By Peter Lundell –

My old running shoes needed help. The laces had broken several times, and the knots tying them together kept getting caught in the eyelets. I found some laces at a dollar store, came home, and put them in. Hmmm… Half the length they needed to be. But they’d do.

Not optimal, not what I could have, but a stopgap for what could be worse. I only use the shoes for walking in the park or when I dress grubby.

I have a good pair of running shoes I use when I jog. But these old shoes with new mismatched laces were my partial effort at shoe renewal.

Then it struck me: people do the same things with their lives that I did with my shoes.

The Bible says, “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV). And we are to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2 NIV). So we have this offer and expectation of newness and transforming renewal.

In terms of shoes, that means whole new, or renewed, shoes. But I see so many people who hold on to their old shoes and put on new laces; sometimes mismatched.

They keep old problematic attitudes and behaviors, old self-oriented identities and interests, and they go to church. It’s like putting on a new pair of mismatched laces to convince themselves and others that they’re doing the Jesus thing now. The truth is that a renewed life would cost them more than a few modifications.

Then I thought of how many times I myself have been that way.

I don’t mean to be unkind. I just want to encourage all of us to pay the price of letting go of our old lives to genuinely receive the new. It is so worth it.

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24 NIV).

“Lord, forgive me for the times when I played around with modifications on my life rather than giving myself over to a whole new life in Christ. Lead me each day so that I would live the life of being transformed by the renewing of my mind. . . .”