The shoes...

New Shoes!  Nike Zoom Kobe VI basketball shoes!  Ah...the end result of a month long hunt!  $140 a pair!

Now some might think I am absolutely crazy as a mother to allow my son to get this pair of shoes. I mean let's just be serious here...$140 could buy groceries for a week. It could pay for education for a child in Africa. It could pay the electric bill or heat in our home! 

But...Kobe worked day in and day out for his dad to earn the money. He is a straight A student. He researched the web, searching for the best price. He waited until his mom had time to take him to Des Moines to buy them. He showed patience and persistence when our first trip amounted to no shoes in the entire Jordan Creek Mall. And, this Sunday, as his mom helped facilitate a potluck outreach for college students, he jumped in and served alongside me without even being asked.

But...that isn't the end...you see, yesterday in the gym with his dad, Kobe put on the new shoes he had worked so hard for. He laced them up. Tightened the fit. Jumped up a bit and felt the bounce. His dad said he was "struttin some arrogance" in feeling pretty sweet in the new shoes.

But Kobe took the shoes, he took the reward of his hard wor,k and he said,

"Dad...I'm gonna put a different verse on each shoe!  I'm gonna put a psalm on one side and Phil. 4:13 on the other!"

And that my friends...is worth more than the $140 he spent...that my friend is my 12 year old teaching me how to give glory to God for all He gives us.

You see, every day we are blessed. Every day the Lord provides us with something...if nothing else, a simple breath of life...and every day, we should give God the glory for that! Kobe has found a concrete way to do that...a black Sharpie and a verse on his new, pristine $140 pair of shoes.

What about us?

How can we give God the glory in our daily work?

In our washing of the family dishes?
In our sitting in the airport waiting for our flight?
In our conversations with coworkers and friends and store clerks and husbands and children? 

"As for me and my house we will serve the Lord."

Joshua 24:15