“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
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