Dirty Feet

  So one of the things I've learned here in Ghana is that is that you can't go anywhere without getting your feet dirty. Unless you live in the nicer part of the city where its paved, its just a fact. You're going to have dirty feet. And it truly is different than where we came from in Ohio. Since its always warmer here, unless you are playing football, sandals or flip flops are the standard footwear. Some of the boys even play football barefoot. Not me. I can't even walk across the drive barefoot without tiptoeing and dancing around. They say I have soft feet, and I guess it's true. So anyway, if you've done much walking, by the end of the day, you're usually pretty filthy from the knees down. The dry dirt and dust just seems to attract to your skin like metal filings to a magnet. When I get done playing football with the boys and I go back and take off my shoes and socks, my ankles and lower legs are so dirty it looks kinda like I just put on a new pair of white socks! When you are walking on the dirt roads or a path, you can feel the dirt and dust hitting your legs and feet as it gets kicked up with each footstep. My mind started recalling certain passages I have read in scripture.

   

       Luke 10:11- "Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near."

      John 13:5 -Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

    And then I noticed something else. If you walk close enough behind someone else, you feel the dirt and dust that they kick up with every step.  I thought about commentaries and history that I've studied that talked about how the Talmidim, or young "Rabbi in training" would try to do everything that their rabbi would do. They acted like him, they talked like him, and they walked where he walked. To the point even, that they would try to be "covered in his dust".

     So in more ways than one, being here in Africa is giving me a new context by which to view life. The thought occurred to me that the dirt here in Ghana is probably not much different than it was in Jesus' neck of the woods, as he walked the dusty roads of Samaria and Judea and Galilee. And as I watch the dirt and grime run off when I  wash my feet under the faucet, I think about Jesus washing his disciples feet. The disciples knew what it meant to "shake the dust from your feet"...literally. And they understood why washing feet was both nasty and necessary. They also understood what it was like to walk in his footsteps. To go where he went and walk closely with him. 

     So I have a different view of dust from here... And I have to ask... Are YOU willing to walk so closely with Jesus that you feel the dust from his feet?

Cayle