Today’s Devotional: “When Will the Next Shoe Drop”
The source of this well-known idiom is thought to date back to the late 19th century in the tenement of New York. Apartments were built with walls that were not only paper thin, but rooms were built on top of one another. And so, when someone came home and took off their shoes, it would be normal to hear soon thereafter the other shoe dropping to the floor.
Therefore, to wait for the other shoe to drop means to wait for the next expected event to occur, an event that will inevitably follow. And the connotation was that it would be a negative event.
This is now the world we live in. It is a world where something bad is always expected to happen, and they begin to pile up on one another. It’s kind of like when we say, “What’s next,” or “What more could go wrong.”
We are therefore living in a world filled with fear and trepidation. But this should not be the mind set of believers in Jesus Christ.
Instead, Jesus said that He leaves us with His peace, and while in this world troubles will come, we are not to allow them to turn us bitter and filled with hatred, and that’s because He overcame the world through His death and resurrection.
Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
And because He overcame this world, we are overcomers as well.
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5)
“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)
So, while the other shoe will drop, let’s instead wait in confidence and full assurance that Jesus is coming back, and that real soon.
