Here’s a rule you may not know: if some of you can play Christmas music in November, I can

make a Christmas reference in a July devotion.

As a kid my favorite Christmas special was Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. It’s the stop-motion

one (like Rudolph) with the comically evil Burgermeister Meisterburger. The special includes a

very catchy song called “Put One Foot in Front of the Other” which teaches that if we want to

make a change, we must take a first step. Here’s part of the chorus:

You never will get where you’re going

If ya never get up on your feet

Come on, there’s a good tail wind blowin’

A fast walking man is hard to beat

I appreciate this advice as a motivational tool - we can’t accomplish any task until we start it. But

it’s hard to walk a path when your feet don’t work. This was the literal problem for

Mephibosheth, who had permanently injured feet and lived in a time before modern medicine

and high-tech prosthetics. How discouraged must Mephibosheth have been? Check out his

response after David gave him the stunning news that he would henceforth be taken care of:

Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant that you take an interest in a

dead dog like me?” (2 Samuel 9:8 HCSB)

A dead dog! Mephibosheth’s response to an offer of grace is to essentially question David’s

decision to even associate with him. I can relate to Mephibosheth in that sometimes I want to

refuse being helped to my feet because it means admitting that I fell. Most of us don’t have the

physical limitations of Mephibosheth, but we all have our stumbling blocks.

All Mephibosheth had to do to change his life for the better was to accept something -- a

kindness he didn’t think he deserved.

God saw Mephibosheth and He sees us, too. He provides for us, maybe not exactly in the way

we want or hope; but from an eternal perspective, it’s more than we can imagine.

Because our view changes depending on where we are, we might not be able to see the second

step until we take the first step toward Him. Put one foot in front of the other.

By Mark Stuart