Winter begins to melt, and melt some more, the rivers rise, the roads host little streams down either side, and the ground remains in a perpetual state of "soggy." It's mud season in Vermont.
I drove to my friend's house today, and she lives off the beaten path, and rather on a path that is pretty beaten up. A bumpy dirt road that's been frozen and remolded, then thawed out, leads to her equally rugged and long driveway to the top of the hill where her house sits. What was an icy Slip 'n' Slide with walls of snow on either side a few weeks ago has given way to the boggy, nasty lane I drove this afternoon. The few residents who travel this road have already created two tire tracks that sink low and hold dirty, brown water. My car immediately found the tracks and splashed along. I accelerated to keep up a good speed, fast enough to, hopefully, not get stuck, but not so fast that I would go careening off into the woods.
But I saw a spot up ahead where the ruts looked deeper, so I accelerated a bit more and gave my steering wheel a slight jerk to get my tires to jump out before I reached the spot. No go. Not only were the ruts deep enough to hold my tires in, but they had that special suction only mud has, a little extra insurance to keep us in line. Fortunately, I made it through anyway, but the wheels in my mind were spinning, too.
We modern types who don't drive wagons anymore also don't encounter many ruts on all the smooth pavement we have at our disposal. With my encounter today, I thought, "Man, I'm stuck in this rut," and I got new revelation on that colloquialism we all use without much thought. While in that rut, I was forced to stay on a path I didn't necessarily like, but getting out was going to take some serious effort. It had a hold on me.
Suddenly, the metaphor I've used in passing became much more vivid. Ruts are awful! I realized that the same focus and flat-out tenacity it would take for me to get out of those suction-cup mud ruts I traveled today would be required to get out of any other life ruts into which I might have fallen over time.
We don't just decide to get out of ruts and then watch it happen. Complaining about the rut doesn't get us out. Getting mad about the rut doesn't get us out. Staring at what's wrong and calling it wrong won't make it turn into right. And making a half-way sort of effort will definitely not cut it. After all that drama and emotional toil, the rut's still there, and we're still in it.
No, we must decide and then get to work. There is no trouble known to man that our High Priest Yahshua didn't encounter and overcome. And He made way for us to have the same Holy Spirit that indwelled Him when He walked the earth. Surely that, or He, as the case may be, can help us out of a rut! So we are not without recourse. But we (not He, but we) have to be pretty unilaterally focused and stubborn. We might have to enlist the help of others. And we must know that we, we who have the very presence of God indwelling us, do, after all, have the upperhand over that rut. So the decision remains:
Stay in the rut where we don't want to be but also don't really have to apply ourselves, or buck up in the power of His Spirit and pull. ourselves.
Out.
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