In the mire ! (Thought for August 2024)

August 7, 2024

in Monthly comment

West Sussex County Times reported that Rescue teams worked through the night in a battle to save the cow stuck in a muddy river in Horsham. It seems it had strayed from the Warnham Local Nature Reserve into Boldings Brook and had become well and truly stuck. Thankfully for all concerned there was a happy ending to what could have been a tragic loss. We trust she is lowing happily again.

I can remember just one time when, as a boy, I was out walking with my brother somewhere near Hawkins Pond in the forest, when my little legs (and they were quite little then) sank into a horrible smelly iron red bog up to my knees. I remember crying out in shock, and was thankful that big brother was there to pull me out, even if we did have a rather pongy walk home!  Actually, I think we’d probably strayed from what path there was – and shouldn’t have been there anyway.

I couldn’t help thinking of the opening verses of Psalm 40, where King David is looking back on when he was rescued from a similar situation, whether physically or spiritually we’re not sure, but it was a deep and nasty pit that he had slipped into, and was sinking in the mud and mire. Just look at those words, the Lord having heard his cry for help: ‘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.’

May I ask you, are you in a miry place in your life just now? Is it getting muddier the longer you go on? You can’t say you’re having the time of your life, but more the slime of your life?
If this is because you have allowed yourself to wander from your walk with the Lord, perhaps through some sinful way in word, deed or attitude, now is the time to make that cry to your big Brother, the Lord Jesus. He’ll reach out and pull you out, graciously restoring you and setting you firmly on the Rock again – He’ll wash you clean, too.
Remember, Jesus has gone through that experience that David describes when he bore your sin and mine in the ‘slimy pit of mud and mire’ that the cross was.  David, when he was writing, inspired of the Holy Spirit, was most certainly speaking of his ‘greater Son’ the Lord Jesus, who bore ‘our sins in His own body on the tree’ 1 Peter 2:24.
And if some of us are going through severe experiences that are akin to a ‘miry bog’, not so much because of our wandering, but through circum-stances, He, the One who has more than ‘gone through it’, is able to lift us out and give us again that firm place to stand. Let’s look up from the pit!
Steve
Elder
August 2024

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