If you enjoy watching football, we are currently in week 14 of an 18-week regular season. The playoffs will be followed by Super Bowl LIX to be played on Feb. 9 at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Some of you are already groaning because you couldn’t care less about football. You’ve already written off this devotional in your mind as something to which you cannot relate.
Indulge me a moment longer and I’ll promise to give you something relatable to even the biggest haters of sports.
On this day in 1934, something peculiar happened in the NFL. The NY Giants were hosting the Chicago Bears at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan. Temperatures had descended to nine degrees. With the field covered in a sheet of ice and the ground corroded, players couldn’t get a footing with their cleats. The metal spikes kept sliding the players all over the field. The first half of the game was miserable for both teams.
Ray Flaherty, the Giants’ assistant coach, had come from Gonzaga University, a private Jesuit university in Spokane, Washington. He remembered a game played in similar conditions and the Gonzaga team came up with a brilliant idea. Why not play the game without cleats? Instead, wear basketball shoes, referred to as sneakers. The Giants’ coach was willing to try anything. However, this is a Sunday, and stores weren’t open back then. Where are you going to find enough sneakers for the team?
“Giants trainer Gus Mauch, who also worked at Manhattan College, had arranged the loan [of sneakers from the Manhattan basketball team] and Abe Cohen [Giants team trainer] had the sneakers ready and waiting in the Giants locker room…
“The teams struggled to gain footing on the slick field as the Bears built a 13-3 halftime lead. That is when Giants Coach Steve Owen put their “secret weapon” into play. Since there weren’t enough pairs of shoes to outfit the entire team, Owen ordered sneakers to be used by his ends and backfield men.
“The sneakers worked as expected. The Giants gained traction on the field and swiftly took command of the game against their disadvantaged opponents who tried their best to stop the Giants from ruining what could have been a perfect season.”1
“Right away, we sensed something was wrong because they had good footing,” Bears legend Bronko Nagurski told NFL Films decades later, “and we didn’t have good footing… they just outsmarted us I guess. It was legal.”2
The Sneaker Game, as it came to be known, went down in NFL history and serves as a great segue to Scripture.
Obviously, it matters what you have on your feet. Basketball players can’t wear cleats. Track runners can’t wear ballerina slippers. Ice skaters can’t wear tap shoes. Construction workers can’t wear flip flops. Having our feet 
properly covered for the occasion is vitally important.
Ephesians 6:13-15 says, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (14) Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; (15) And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace…”
The Enduring Word Commentary writes, “Preparation is a word meaning “a prepared foundation.” The gospel provides the footing for everything we do. However powerful the rest of your body is, if you are wounded in your feet you are easy prey for the enemy.
“The idea of preparation is really readiness. We must be mobile, flexible, and ready with the truth. This is a place to have in the Christian life, to live in constant readiness and flexibility.
“On the shoes: “Josephus described them as ‘shoes thickly studded with sharp nails’… so as to ensure a good grip. The military successes both of Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar were due in large measure to their armies’ being well shod and thus able to undertake long marches at incredible speed over rough terrain.” (Leon Wood)”
The Gospel of Peace is the foundation we stand upon in this world. It is our message to an unstable, unredeemed world. The right shoes matter because we have mountain climbing to do! Let’s get our feet shod properly.
Isaiah 52:7 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!
1https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/1934-nfl-championship/
2https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/worst-nfl-field-conditions-bears-giants
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