Mud Not Cement

…and Jeremiah sunk down into the mud. Jeremiah 38:6 

My oldest brother and I had a favorite thing to do when we were little.  It involved a couple illegal ingredients for little kids. In our back yard, we had an old cement fish pool. Before dad filled it in with dirt and mom made it a flower garden, it used to collect rain water.  If we could get out to play before the water drained through the cracks in the cement, we could scoop up our first ingredient; water.  Dirt; the second ingredient was easier to find.  The third magic ingredient was the tricky one!  If we could get rain water and dirt we knew all we needed was shaving cream.  Our house was tiny so sneaking out the door with two handfuls of shaving cream squirted as quietly as possible took some skill.  When we managed to pull it off we’d create the worlds best mud pies in the back of Jim’s big yellow Tonka Dump Truck.  With sticks to stir and army men and toy animals to stick in the mud pie, we were set for a long afternoon of great fun!  When I became a mother myself, it occurred to me that mom probably knew exactly what we were doing and just enjoyed the peace and quiet and maybe even the thought of her oldest two playing together happily.

When I read this line about the Prophet Jeremiah, I remembered the sight of all those toys sticking in the mud pies we used to make.  It got me to thinking about the times we get stuck in the mud ourselves.  Sometimes we wallow and struggle and just dig in deeper.  Sometimes we get stuck because of the choices we make and sometimes we get stuck as a result of the choices others make.  Right about now many folks are feeling a little stuck. Stuck at home, stuck in fear, stuck in a situation we feel unqualified and unprepared for.  The anxiety and uncertainty of the pandemic can swallow us if we let it.  The good news is, mud is different than cement.  We can get out of the mud, it doesn’t trap us like cement! It will take some work but it’s absolutely worth the struggle.

God doesn’t want us to stay right where we are. He isn’t going to leave us  stuck in this situation.  It may feel like cement but it’s really just mud and getting unstuck is possible because of his grace and love for us. This  isn’t permanent and he’s inviting us to reach up our hands and allow him to rescue us.  Staying right where we are isn’t the Fathers choice, the truth is, we are either moving toward him or away from him, never staying just where we are. He wants us to move closer to him and sometimes he allows us to get stuck in the mud so we can realize how much we need him.

A Seed To Plant:  Are you stuck?  What are you stuck in the middle of right now that is preventing you from moving closer to the Father?  Hold out your hand and ask him to pull you out!​

Blessings on your day!