‘Mom,’ said Scott (8), ‘I’ve come up with an invention, and I’m going to change the world.’

‘Fantastic,’ I said. ‘What?’

‘Electric slippers. To warm your feet. With LED lights so you can see where you’re going if you get up in the night. Plus a laser pointer so you can aim and the slippers will take you where you want to go if you’re tired.’

The Verimark infomercial just writes itself, doesn’t it?

The teacher in Ecclesiastes says,

There’s nothing new under the sun.

(It’s possible someone has already invented electric slippers.)

Still – for those of us alive today under this sun – it can feel as if all kinds of new and crazy scary surround us. Divorce is just an expensive break up. Sex is digitally outsourced. Parenting is a de-prioritised, non-career KPA.

It can feel as if someone has switched off hope and we’re wandering in the dark.

But the psalmist says,

Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Let’s not miss the lit slippers we’re given by a Father who welcomes us home where we can kick off our status stilettos and our just-do-it running shoes and our polished power scooby doo’s and sink into soft truth with strong soles, for our souls.

We were born for such a time as this. God is unsurprised by the terrain we walk, and the truth-slippers He gives us, fit.

We could slip onto our feet and our kids’ feet the living, glittering Word until it’s more than flashing LEDs down a passage – and more like burning-bush bright-and-holy floodlights for our feet so that the people living in darkness will see a great light.

Seth Godin reminds us that when Guttenberg invented the printing press only 7% of Europe was literate. Those who could read needed reading glasses, which hadn’t been invented yet. It was a dumb time to launch the book.

When Karl Benz made a car, it was against the law to drive in Germany. He had to get a permission letter from the King. There were no roads. No petrol stations. It was a dumb time to launch the car.

The first person with a fax machine had to tell all his friends to get one too. It was too soon to bring fax machines to the market because no one else had one yet. It was a dumb time to launch the fax machine.

The world would’ve told these people to wait, because the world wasn’t ready. And yet the world didn’t know these guys had invented game-changers.

It might seem like a dumb time to launch electric slippers. But who knows? Maybe feet the world over really need them.

And whether or not the world realizes it or acknowledges it or feels ready for it, what the world definitely needs is messengers shod with the hope and radiance of Jesus.

It’s never too soon to step bravely into darkness to bring light.

Someone must.

How incredible that it could be us.

. . .

I hope your weekend is completely fantastic!

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