Stuck in the Muck

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it” (Isaiah 43:18-19a, NIV)? 

He does a new thing everyday, so why don't I perceive it? Perhaps it is because I'm “stuck in the “muck” of my life. A friend told me this week, “I look at muck as something that is thick and heavy and keeps you in one place where you can't move... a place where I continue to believe the enemy's lies.” Muck can be my stronghold. It can be the thing in my life that paralyzes me. What is sad that muck can become my way of life. 

Some of the synonyms for muck are mire, mud, filth, dirt, and slime. It sounds disgusting, but when that is what defines my life, it is disgusting. When I'm stuck in that muck of sin or fear or stubbornness or complacency or whatever holds me captive, any hope for greater faith is sucked out of me. My muck speaks death to my faith. It reeks of the enemy's ability to keep me from freedom. But, if I will allow God to reach down and help me, He has newness of life for me. “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire,” the psalmist wrote. “He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” (Psalm 40:2). If I reach up, He will grab my trembling hand, and with amazing strength of purpose, pull me out of that sucking slime. Lifting me in His determined grasp, He will hold me safely and securely in His redeeming love.

How do I get to the place where I am willing to admit the muck has me stuck, and I need God's help? If my muck is sin, then that is when I realize that it destroying my soul, and God is slipping further and further away. When it is complacency, then it is usually when something horrible happens to shake me to the core. When it is a stubborn spirit, then it is when I drown in the muck of my own making, because my need to control has to have everything its own way. When it is from fear, then it is when my fear has utterly consumed and paralyzed me. Whatever it takes to admit that I am stuck in the muck in my life... whatever it takes to bring me to the point where I reach for His Hand....that is what I need to happen in my life to make me desperate enough to let go and reach up for Him.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants'" (Exodus 33:1, NIV). He longs for me to leave the muck I'm stuck in and move on to the “new thing”..... that promised land....that He has for me. I choose to reach up, and grab His hand. I choose to leave the muck of the “former things” behind. When I allow Him to rescue me from what I have been, known, done, perceived, controlled, and feared, I discover He does do a “new thing”. I actually perceive His amazing “newness” for my life! I know that with His help and His strength and with my surrender and willingness, this “new thing” will remain fresh as the moment He reached down and lifted me upward into His presence