It's been about two weeks since our team arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Many things that initially took adjusting to have become more normal – the smell of street food, the hot weather, the long walks, our showers being either scalding hot or freezing cold, and even our rock solid mattresses. However there's one thing that surprises all of us almost every day when we get back to the room.
Our feet are always disgustingly dirty.
Sometimes it's clear why our feet are dirty if we spend a few hours playing in a field with slum kids, or if we walked an especially dirty road, but often we walk on well-traveled roads and don't expect to be caked in mud.
A while back I heard a teaching about what discipleship would have looked like in Jesus' time. A common saying was used to illustrate how closely they expected disciples to follow their rabbis.
“You should be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”
The disciples should be following so closely that whatever their rabbi kicked up they got covered in:
their robes,
their faces
and their feet.
When we scrub our feet clean every night I think about this illustration. As gross as our feet are it reminds me that I am here in Thailand trying to follow my Rabbi and Teacher as closely as possible, getting covered in everything He kicks up along the way. In the obviously filthy places or the seemingly clean and safe, following the Lord is messy and dirty in order to live a Christ-like life we have to be willing to get dusty.
As our team follows our Rabbi pray that we are covered in the dust He kicks up as He walks before us, and pray that we follow all the more closely. Pray that we find joy in the messiness and in our dirty feet as we pursue the great adventure the Lord is leading us on.
