Muddling

I’ve known Jason for a few years and thought I knew the guy – a pleasant, likeable young man working in his dad’s business, happily married to his wife who bore him two children and he was deacon in the church.

Whenever one looked at Jason he portrayed an image of a perfect son, husband, father and servant in his community. He always appeared neat, confident and knowing where he was heading. All of this was shattered one day when Jason left his family and his job to become a drunk somewhere else.

After a long time of counseling and prayers, it was discovered that Jason’s life was not as picture-perfect as it seemed, in fact, he led a pitiful life. He did not like his job because he only did it to please his dad. He loved his wife but he hated the fact that she expected of him to be a man of distinction. He was a genuine believer but agreed to become deacon only because it was expected of him to do so.

In reality, he was moving around in society dressed in a tailor-made suit with his head held high, but he dragged himself along on feet that seemed to be stuck in sticky, gooey, ankle-deep mud. His slogging around in this “mud” reminded of another word with the same root: muddling = to busy oneself in a confused and ineffective way; to progress in a haphazard way.

With his head held high, while muddling through life, he could only carry on until he just got too tired and the mud got too deep for him to muddle along any further.

I don’t know what happened to Jason in the end but I do know that he made us think about our own muddling in life.

Jesus doesn’t want us to muddle. He became our Saviour to get us out of the mud. Sin is mud but the cares and expectations of this world have the same effect. Our sins are forgiven but somehow we carry on muddling along in the desires and cares of this world.

Sometimes we allow things in our lives to mud us down so much that we are left tired and wasted at the end of the day.

There is only one way of getting out of muddling and that is to seek the face of Jesus. You see, He does so much more than forgiving sins. Before His crucifixion He took water and washed the feet of the disciples. He also wanted them to stop muddling. What He did then had nothing to do with sins because He told Peter that he was clean already, but he still needed this washing of his feet. (John 13:14)

I imagine myself sitting down in front of Jesus with my two feet covered with mud reaching almost to my knees. How wonderful to feel His hands, marked by the scars, washing off all the mud. Then He would look at my face and tell me, “Stop muddling, My child, just follow Me…… just follow Me!”

When Jesus washed the feet of His disciples He added the words, “You also ought to wash one another’s feet.” That is exactly what we should do.

Serve people as Jesus did and look for Jason and company and wash their feet before they quit. In the meantime, stay out of the mud.