Devotional

Take Your Shoes Off

Michael Beck

“O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.” (Job 13:5)

Moses stood on holy ground and was told to take his shoes off. What is holy belongs to God; it is what is of Him and by Him and for Him. In the holy, there is no mixture between earth and heaven. The earth that accumulates and collects in men’s minds are the thoughts that proceed from them. They do not belong to God. He says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8,9)

Even as Moses was astounded by the sight of the bush that was burning but not consumed, Job’s friends were astonished by their friend’s plight. How? How could this man they deemed so upright come to such a pitiful state? How could such tragedy befall him? They put their minds on the situation and came up with an earthly interpretation. They should have “taken their shoes off” when they beheld this “burning bush.”

The secret things belong to the Lord our God. We need to leave many things alone. We need to be careful of our “religious” understandings as to why someone is suffering. Unless God gives us revelation as to the cause of anything, we know nothing. God help us to take our shoes off in the presence of what perplexes us. Keep silent longer than seven days.


Michael Beck is a pastor in the Dallas, TX area and the main author on Signpost. Receive a daily devotional he publishes every morning via email.