A Lesson from the Mud

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth a hymn of praise to our God.” Psalm 40: 2-3

I love my woods. Actually I need to clarify something right from the start – they aren’t my woods at all – they belong to the person that owns the farm ground surrounding my home and he quite graciously allows me free access to them for my enjoyment. I also need to clarify the term ‘woods’ this area is really what most folks in Iowa would refer to as ‘scrub timber’ with lots of fallen trees, weeds, brush and in need of pruning (or burning). But be that as it may, I’ve grown to love this little piece of ground that borders a small creek and river along the adjoining fields. I walk the well worn path every day with my dogs and ride through it often on horseback.

This small piece of ground provides a living mural of the changing seasons and a constant reminder of the wonders of creation and our Creator. It’s easy to talk and listen to God in this environment. His presence is everywhere. There is no way to escape the absolute awesomeness of His Creation. I feel truly blessed to be able to experience this wonder on a daily basis. I often wonder how different life would be without this daily dose of humility – what it would be like to wake in a high rise apartment in a congested city and maybe go for months or years without experiencing anything that wasn’t man made. Thankfully, this is not the life He chose for me so it has become easy for me to ‘Grow where God plants you’. But I digress……..

I’ve been given another great blessing of 5 grandchildren (I think this one is to offset some of the other ‘blessing’ of growing older!) Through the years, we’ve all spent a lot of time walking in the ‘woods’ together (long walks on short legs result in long naps) and they’ve come to love it as much as I do. A couple of years ago, around late April, two of the grandkids, Parker (4) and Allison (3), came out to spend the weekend and were really looking forward to our walk in the woods – we had just come through a couple of days of spring rains and the path was really muddy so it didn’t seem like a very good idea. However, as most grandparents know – “No” is a word very rarely used in conversations with grandkids, I finally relented to their pleas but under the condition that they had to follow exactly in my footsteps – thinking I would keep them on the grass and out of the mud. (silly old grandma!) Things went pretty well at first – kind of a short lived game of Follow the Leader – then a bunch of wildflowers caught Allie’s attention and within the blink of an eye she shot off across the thick, soggy timber soil to pick ‘just one’ (didn’t matter if she picked one or a dozen – fact is she was in the mud). And by the second blink, Parker was in hot pursuit (after all big brothers are supposed to be watch out for their little sisters), leaving me, the ‘Leader’, with the only clean shoes still firmly planted in the clean green grass next to the muddy path.

Within just a few steps, my little nature enthusiasts learned a new lesson…..not all mud is created equal. Wet timber soil is not only dirty, slick and messy; it’s sticky – real sticky – almost like gum. It sort of grabs hold of you and sticks you in place – or at least your shoes. You guessed it – they were stuck in the mud. So much for my clean shoes and “I told you so” – there was only one course of action……get into the mud myself and pull them out – no way of doing that without getting myself at least as dirty as they were, probably worse. I’m happy to report that the rescue was successful, even the handful of wildflowers was saved – in fact they were the only ones that came out without one bit of ‘Yuk’ stuck to them.
We headed back to the house, got hosed off in the spare tank and finished off in the shower. While the shoes and clothes were in the washer, we sat down with a snack (the wildflowers in a glass of cold water providing a beautiful centerpiece) and discussed how much easier it would have been to simply follow the rules (we also had some good giggles about how silly they looked stuck in the mud).

Reflecting back on this afternoon, it came to mind that this brief episode is really what happens to all of us on a daily basis…….God says “follow me and I will take care of you” and we start out so enthusiastically, following exactly in His footsteps but within a very short time, we take off on our own, trusting our own judgment, changing the rules to suit our self-interest, looking for shortcuts, chasing after the first thing that catches our fancy and the results are always the same. We get stuck in the mud of life. The harder we try to get out on our own, the dirtier we get. The only way out is for our ‘Leader’ to save us and the only way he can do that is to get right into the mud with us – and that’s exactly what He does isn’t it? Jesus comes right into our messy world to pick us up, take us home and make us clean again. And just like silly old grandma, He loves us just as much when we’re dirty and muddy as when we’re all clean and shiny but we sure feel better after He’s cleaned us up again.

-Submitted by Sandy Anderson