Beautiful Feet!

These words, quoted here by Paul in his letter to the Romans, first appear in Scripture in Isaiah 52:7 and Nahum 1:15. They express an amazing and very simple truth. When a person comes to you with anything – be it good or bad - it is their feet that carry them. Feet are the most fundamental and basic means of transport without which we could go nowhere and achieve nothing.

I well remember being sick in bed as a child. I was alone in bed upstairs and feeling miserable! I could hear all the noises of normal family life going on downstairs and I wished I wasn’t confined to my bed. But then I heard the footsteps of my Mum on the staircase. The effect was immediate. I knew that Mum would be bringing me something nice and just the sound of her ‘beautiful feet’ put a smile on my face and made me feel better!

My father was led to faith in Jesus by a children’s evangelist called Hudson Pope. Hudson Pope had been conducting a mission in Bolton, but on the last day of the mission my Dad, then aged ten, was ill and couldn’t walk the two miles into town to go to the final meetings. But God had already touched Dad’s heart and he wanted to become a Christian. So he wrote a little letter to Hudson Pope which I still have today. In it Dad simply said to Hudson Pope, in childlike words, “I want to be a Christian – can you help me?” The following day Hudson Pope walked the two miles to go and talk with this 10 year old boy who wanted to be a Christian and led him into the Kingdom of God.

I will never cease to thank God for Hudson Pope’s beautiful feet - the feet that carried him out of town for a four mile round trip on a cold February day in order to answer the cry of a small boy who needed Jesus. A generation later that ‘small boy’ led me, at the age of nine, into the Kingdom of God. If it wasn’t for Hudson Pope’s beautiful feet I wouldn’t know Jesus today. As I write these words my heart is full of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Let us never forget to thank God for the beautiful feet of those who have been a blessing to us in our own lives. And let us never forget that day by day God wants to use our feet to take us to places as an agent of His love to whoever God sends us.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for those who have been the means of grace to us – whose feet have been beautiful for You. Help me, Lord, to let my feet be used to bring Your joy into the lives of others. And keep me, Lord, from letting my feet take me to places to do ungodly things. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.