If you don’t get the job. If you don’t get to go. If you don’t see success in this season. If the miracle doesn’t come. If the diagnosis doesn’t change. If the circumstances don’t get better.
He is still good.
That’s not to say that this doesn’t cause a lot of fear.
Fear what we don’t know. Fear what we do know. Fear of the things our minds conjure up.
Grey loves playing with trucks and tractors. One of his favorite games is pretending to get his trucks stuck in the mud, then using his tow truck to pull each of them out. He does this so often, we found ourselves talking about getting stuck in the mud all. the. time.
Ben and I eventually adapted the phrase “don’t get stuck in the mud” to mean don’t let your mind get the best of you. When life is heavy and it feels like you’re just spinning your wheels, it’s easy to get bogged down in how terribly things are going or how off-track your life seems to have gotten.
Your mind will start playing a highlight reel of all your past failures and mistakes. It can cloud your judgment and leave you feeling that the muck you’re surrounded by will soon pull you under.
Have you ever really stopped to think about mud, though? I mean, aside from hogs wallering in it; there are a lot of things that can come from mud.
Jesus used it to restore a man’s sight. There was no mud on the ground. Jesus deliberately created it, using his own saliva. He knew it would be messy and unpleasant. He knew it wasn’t insta-worthy. But he did it anyway. Because he knew that, through the mud, he would be providing for the man in a way that would allow the healing to point only to Jesus. He was opening the eyes of this person to a world and a savior he would have never seen if it weren’t for the mud.
Even more importantly, it used to be the norm to be baptized in muddy water. To ease into the river, toes squishing through the mud beneath, wading out into the moving water to have your past literally and figuratively washed away.
Still, before we can enjoy that sense of rejuvenation and rest on the banks with our Savior, it can often feel like our mud is actually sinking sand.
If it feels like things are falling apart and that you are spread a little too thin, maybe you need to get a bit muddy. Maybe you need the healing of a savior who doesn’t mind wading into the water with you. Maybe that mud can allow you to become more pliable. Maybe it can enable the good stuff to stick.
And yall, there’s someone who can save us. His hand is outstretched, waiting to lift you from the levee.
He will place people on your path who happen to drive a tow truck. People who happen to have been in those muddy places before. People who don’t mind getting a little dirt on their own boots. People who can help you stay out of the mud once you’re safely on dry ground.
Your mud may look different from my mud. As seasons change and the topography of life changes, the sediment creating the mud is altered. But when you find yourself eyeing another sinkhole up ahead, remember to call the tow truck before you propel yourself into the puddle.
With a world that seems to be getting crazier by the minute, I’m praying you don’t get stuck in the mud.
John 9:11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
Nahum 3:14 Draw yourselves water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Trample the mud and tread the clay! Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!
Psalm 40:2 He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.
Psalm 69:2 I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing; I have come into deep waters, and a flood sweeps over me.
Salty but Sweet 