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"Have any of you ever had a new pair of shoes?" The children greet this question with looks of surprise, as if to say, "Who hasn't? Of course we have."

As I look around the group, I continue: "Probably all of you have had new shoes. In fact, you've had new shoes a number of times because you are all growing, probably faster than you can wear shoes out. I have new shoes too, new shoes I haven't even worn yet except to try them on." With these words I take a pair of new shoes out of a shopping bag.

"There they are, my new shoes -- my BIG new shoes. None of your feet are this big yet, but some day they may be -- or even bigger!

"You can tell these shoes are brand-new because they aren't scuffed like the older ones I'm wearing. The soles still have tread on them too; the shoes I'm wearing nearly have the tread worn off." I hold one foot up so the children can inspect the bottom of one of my current shoes and compare it with the soles of my new ones.

"You know, shoes are very personal. Sometimes you can recognize other people just by seeing their shoes. Your shoes go everywhere you go; they take you through the world.

"Thinking about shoes, I was wondering if any of you have ever heard anyone say, 'Well, put yourself in my shoes!' " Several children nod affirmatively.

"What did the person who said that mean?" I question.

"Put yourself in my place," Cynthia replies.

"Why would he want you to do that?" I continue.

"So I can understand how he feels, I guess," Cynthia answers.

"I agree with you," I tell her. "Sometimes the best way to understand how someone else feels or why someone else is acting in a certain way is to try to imagine what it would be like to be in his place, to put ourselves in his shoes. Our youth group will be doing something like that in a few weeks when they conduct a thirty-hour fast. They will have no solid food for thirty hours. They are going to get hungry. But they'll begin to understand, in a way they would not be able to without experiencing hunger themselves, what it is like to not have enough to eat.

"The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church at Corinth in which he said, 'I have become all things to all people.' He literally tried to experience whatever the people he was with experienced so that he could understand them, and so they -- knowing he understood them -- might listen to what he had to say about Jesus.

"There's someone who loves us very, very much, who cared enough to put himself in our shoes. Do you know who that is?"

"God," comes the quiet, awed, but unquestioning response.

"Yes," I agree, "God. God came to be with us through his son Jesus. Jesus literally put himself in our place when he suffered and died on the cross.

"Because God came to us in Jesus, God knows what it's like to be human. God knows what it's like to laugh, to cry, to be hurt, to dance with joy, to give someone a hug. God knows what it's like to walk in our shoes, because God has done it. And because God knows, because God understands us out of God's own experience, we can go to God with everything that life is. We can rejoice with God when good things happen and take our tears and fears to God when we are hurt or afraid, certain that God understands because God has experienced those things too -- because God, through Jesus, put himself in our shoes.

"Putting yourself in someone else's shoes means you care enough to try to understand him or her. It is a wonderful way in which to show our love and compassion for others. And when we do, we are following the example set for us by God in Jesus. When we try to understand another person by putting ourselves in his or her shoes, we are being disciples of Christ."