This is a gorgeous analogy by Stephen Morris. I will let it speak for itself:

“I love going barefoot. Everywhere. For me, there is no greater freedom than living life without the constraints of shoes. I may get some weird looks from people, but that is expected for people who live shoe-free.

“Going barefoot is an outward symbol of what is on the inside. I see shoes as religious performance. Feet in shoes tend to get hot, sweaty, and sometimes stinky. But you don’t really know how sweaty or stinky or hot your feet get until you remove the shoes.

“Same thing with religion. You really don’t know how imprisoned or stifled you are in your religion until you step out of it. When you are barefoot, your feet breathe a sigh of relief, because you brought them back to their natural state.

“When you’re in the wild, in the untamed world of grace, your heart and spirit finally breathe because you are now where you were always meant to be. That is why I go barefoot.”

– Stephen Morris, shared with his kind permission