Mud pies and Jesus

While I was filling up the pool today for my kids I had no idea that they would give me the perfect object lesson. The decided that as I was putting water in the pool it would be even more fun to take buckets of water out of the pool and make some mud pies. Now, they weren’t your normal mud pies. They made smoothies that consisted of grapes, coffee, chocolate, strawberries, and the wayward stick. They had fun mixing the mud and pouring it into different containers.

While they were doing this I got to thinking about how the mud sticking to their hands, legs and even cheeks was like sin. The mud was sticking to them like sin sticks to us. It looks like so much fun, and many times it is, but the sin gets stuck on us and it takes the grace of Jesus to get us clean again, just like the water is what gets the mud off of my kids.

Sinning can be fun. Just like standing in a bucket of mud. The mud feels cool on our feet. It is soft and squishy and until we try to step out of the bucket we don’t realize how hard it has a hold of us. The princess found out that if you move around much in the mud your feet get stuck. The mud starts to form a suction around your foot and it is hard to get out. Just like sin.

Sometimes the sin can be a team effort. As individuals you might not even consider it but then a friend suggests something and then you agree. Before you know it you are working as a team. Today the firefighter and princess didn’t think of mud pies individually. It took one of them accidentally dropping some dirt in a bucket to realize that they could have some fun with it. Once they both tried it, there was no going back.

Thankfully when we sin Jesus is there to help us get back on track. Many times when we look at our lives we can get overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the mess that we have gotten ourselves in. All we see is that nasty mud seeping between our toes. The sound of the suction as we try to wrestle free from our sin. We forget that we have an out. We have a way to become clean. We have forgiveness. We have a savior that is just waiting to take his grace and help us out of the mud. Help us wash ourselves clean and start over.

Jesus is our teammate. He is the one that can see how things are going to come out. He can see that we need his help. He can see exactly what to do to help. He can take his love and grace and wash us clean. We can’t do it without him, just like today, my kids, as a team made the mud pies, smoothies and coffee.

I didn’t start out today thinking that my kids would play in the mud or that I would find an object lesson out of it. Be honest, would you have considered an object lesson out of mud pies? I honestly just wanted them to stop fighting. It was fun to see that they were grasping the understanding about Jesus cleansing us from sin. I am sure that I will need to have this talk again, many times, but, I will never look at mud pies the same way again.