Five mornings a week I have the same routine.

I wake up, eat two pieces of wheat toast, hug my wife, threaten my kids, and get dressed for work. I put on a nice pair of dress pants, a crisp white shirt and a tie that matches (thanks to my wife). I have to say, I look alright. Lately when I have been getting to work, however, the inmates that work for me have been asking the same question Chap, why are your shoes so dirty? You may be wondering the same thing, so here it goes.

Just call me Oliver Wendell Douglas. Remember him? He was the high society lawyer that left the city with his beautiful wife and relocated to Hooterville. He bought a farm to fulfill his life long dream of tilling the ground and living off the land. His experiences were recorded in a series of 30 minute documentaries entitled Green Acres. Yeah, thats me. Only Ive never been a lawyer, Im not moving anywhere; Im not buying a farm and theyre not making a documentary about me Well, anyway, I do have a beautiful wife and I planted a garden.

My garden is just about six weeks old now and I love it. In fact, Im thinking about becoming a meat-aterian. I just dont know how Im going to be able to end the lives of my beautiful vegetables. Every morning, just before I go to work I stop by my garden. I make a walk up and down the rows to check on the growth of my beautiful little plants (I remember when they were just seeds). And thats how my shoes get so dirty. The tilled, wet dirt just sticks to them like glue. It doesnt really bother me, because I would rather fellowship with my veggies than have clean shoes.

I was thinking about my garden and my dirty shoes a few days ago. I thought about how my dirty shoes relate to our Great God. You see, the first couple was placed in a beautiful garden. Every day God would come down and walk with Adam and Eve in that Garden. The High and Lofty One would leave the clouds of glory and place His feet on the soil. He did this to have fellowship with His creation. Of course, we know that they sinned and were cast out of the garden, therefore, fellowship with God was broken.

Thousands of years later there would be another garden; The Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh would come to this garden and commit to bearing the sins of the world. Jesus humbled Himself, took upon a human body and became sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him 2 Cor. 5:21. He got His feet dirty so that He could wash ours (John 13:5). I wonder if the angels asked the Lord something like my inmates asked me. I wonder if they asked Him Why are your feet dirty? If they did, I know His answer would be, Because I wanted to fellowship with my creation. What a blessing it is to know that our God loves us so much that He was willing to place His beautiful feet on this ugly earth so that we could enjoy fellowship with Him for all eternity (Genesis 3, John 1, Luke 22:39-46, Revelation 22:1-5).