Ever get stuck in the mud?

            It somehow happens to all of us one day or another. Messy at best, dangerous at worst; usually we’re caught unaware.

            As little children, it was a pleasant way to pass time, playing in the mud, making mud pies and pretending they’re real. At suppertime we craved resl food but before letting us come in, our mother or father would carry us inside for a bath and gently scrub away all the dried mud and bring us, spotless, to the family dinner able.

            As we grew, we loved to splash in rain puddles along the roadside. Parents taught us the dangers of getting so close to traffic. They reminded us we needed our shoes, dry and shiny, for school the next day. One day after a storm, my path home became a slip-and-slide of gooey mud, with no way around it. As I slipped and slid, my foot became trapped! I struggled and finally wrestled my foot free, but left my shoe behind.  I was freed, but at a cost.

            One boring afternoon Mother was frustrated to stay home. Daddy parked the car at the airport and spent the sunny weekends taking pilot lesson. She and I took a bus to the airport, found the car and drove away. I knew trouble was just around the corner—nobody drove his car, ever! After a mile or so, we found ourselves on an unfamiliar road, a deeply muddy road. We got out, walked to a bus stop and went home, leaving the car firmly held prisoner up to its hubcaps. I thought it was gone for good but the next day it was in its driveway as usual and clean! I never knew how—Daddy must have had helpful friends who pulled and pushed to set it free.

            Even though we outgrow mud pies, we’re naturally drawn to the dangerous path, getting our feet muddy, The farther down this path we go, the less we realize our danger--it begins to seem normal. We no longer recognize the filth of our path—after all, there are crowds of people slogging through the street with us and nobody seems to notice they are sinking lower with each unheeding step. Eventually the struggle seems hopeless and we look up and see Our Father’s hand, reaching down from Heaven to scrub away all the mud and bring us to His family feast.

        His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our                           acknowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
                                                      2 Peter 1:3, NIV

           

           

Importance of Vehicle Maintenance

Once I had a shiny, new automobile I was thrilled with—at first. A few months later, not so much. It grew fond of dying in an intersection, seeming to enjoy the attention of other cars, whose horns loudly brayed their ridicule as they edged around us.

Eventually Wheels, as I had named her, grew tired of the game and would meekly cough and resume her sedate path homeward. Sometimes she behaved even more erratically: for no apparent reason, she displayed a streak of anger in a fountain of hot water shooting from her radiator.

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I was puzzled; she had always received tender, loving care—Saturday afternoons were spa day, up to and including a cooling spritz of floral-scented air freshener.  Why was she becoming so finicky, xo  temperamental?

A kind mechanic at the dealership helped me understand her behavior was a cry for help, which I hadn’t understood. Her outbursts of hot water, he said, were her plea for a cooling drink of anti-freeze. And her capricious stops and starts were solved by looking under her hood. A cable was hanging onto the battery by a thread, causing it to become unstable. The battery connections were corroded so her connection to power was corrupted. Simple to fix but unnecessary if she had been properly maintained.

My fault, my responsibility.

Come to think about it, a little like my spiritual life, neglected and ignored, despite my best intentions. Corrosion between my heart and my Source of Power affect my performance—sin is corrosive and divisive, distracting me, separating me from my Heavenly Father. And spending more time reading the Owner’s Manual for my life, living water nourishing my soul—the Holy Bible--should keep me from stalling out in heavy traffic, those urgent times when I feel so out of control.  Simple to fix, but requiring my diligent attention, my earnest effort to follow my Lord, my Leader, all the way Home.  Effort well rewarded by a smoother path ahead.

Truth?  "Wheels" existed only to illustrate an important point, although I did once own a car that spent more time at the shop than its own garage.

Our spiritual growth is at risk when we try to "wing it" instead of daily checking with our Master Mechanic and learning all we can from His Instruction manual. All the info is right there,  readily available because He loves each one of us.