In Someone Else's Shoes

We had something of a grand opening at Hetton Chapel last month. Although we started Sunday services in January, it was thought that something more formal in March’s better weather might attract a good number of locals, which turned out to be the case. I like to be smart when I enter a pulpit, but I made an especial effort that day. Imagine my horror when, at someone’s home before the service, my right sole fell off. Like most of my shoes, they were over twenty years old, but it was still a rather inconvenient day upon which to let me down. I attempted to hold the shoe together with rubber bands but, alas, they would not suffice.

My host offered me a pair of his boots. They matched well enough my brown, tweed suit, but they were size 11s compared to my 8½s. I tried them on, and found them surprisingly comfortable, though I felt like a clown or Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. I was a little self-conscious, but no one seemed to notice the disproportionately sized footwear.

To put oneself in someone else’s shoes means to try and see something from their perspective or develop a regard for another’s difficulties. This we may call empathy, and it helps us to get on better with folk we might otherwise dismiss or disregard. We find it taught in passages like Romans 12:15:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. (New King James Version)

Bearing with one another and being of one mind often involves trying to see something from another angle, from putting on their shoes and walking in them. Those shoes’ owners might not always be correct and faultless, but try to accommodate them we should, in the name of love, and for the sake of Him who made them.