Shoes and Service

President Monson once related this about President Kimball: “One day I was sitting in the temple near President Kimball. As I looked down, I noticed that he had a large hole in his shoe. And I mean large! His stocking showed through. After the meeting I said to Arthur Haycock, President Kimball’s secretary, ‘Arthur, you can’t let the President wear those shoes.’ Arthur responded, ‘Has he got that pair out again? He has many pairs of shoes, and I frequently hide that pair, but he searches and finds that particular pair most of the time.’” President Monson then commented, “President Kimball was known for his statement showing his humility: ‘My life is like my shoes—to be worn out in service.’” President Kimball was certainly known for wearing out his life in the Lord’s service, and worn-out shoes are a fitting symbol of his unflappable efforts to perform his duty.

This reminded me of another shoe story about President Monson which is a similarly fitting symbol of his service. President Holland related, “I pay a personal tribute to President Thomas Spencer Monson. I have been blessed by an association with this man for 47 years now, and the image of him I will cherish until I die is of him flying home from then–economically devastated East Germany in his house slippers because he had given away not only his second suit and his extra shirts but the very shoes from off his feet. ‘How beautiful upon the mountains [and shuffling through an airline terminal] are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.’ More than any man I know, President Monson has ‘done all he could’ for the widow and the fatherless, the poor and the oppressed.” President Monson gave his shoes and went home in slippers to bless the lives of the poor in East Germany, and his shoeless feet then were surely a symbol of his great generosity in the service of the Lord.

            The most powerful story in the scriptures related to shoes is perhaps that of the Savior at the Last Supper. John recorded, “He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded” (John 13:4-5). He had the disciples remove their shoes so that he could wash their dirty feet, likely caked in the dust of the roads they walked around in all day. It is interesting that at the beginning of the Savior’s ministry, John the Baptist had said this about shoes: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). John felt he could not even hold the shoes of the Savior, so great was the Son of God compared to himself. And yet that same Savior, because of His perfect goodness, was willing to remove the shoes of His disciples and scrub their feet.   

            All three of these stories related to feet and shoes point us to remember that greatness comes from service. We should figuratively use our feet as much as possible in the service of the Lord as declared by Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” (Isaiah 52:7) With our feet we should seek to bring the world good tidings of good, and as we put our shoes on them, we can remember the worn-out shoes (and life) of President Kimball, the donated shoes given in love by President Monson, and the dirty shoeless feet of those early apostles being washed by the Son of God.