Have You Stepped In Something Today?
I began my day by taking the dogs out, a usual morning routine, and sometime while we were outdoors, I stepped right in the middle of a "pile", got it all over my new shoes and tracked it on the porch and into the house, and all over the kitchen floor, before I realized what had happened! Ugh! Not a pleasant way to begin my day! I taught a "Bible lesson" about this experience, a few years ago... on how, eventually, we all "step in something" from time to time, and realized that even this experience may have spiritual implications.
When my daughter was two and a half years of age, I took her to my inlaw's 440-acre family farm in rural Mississippi. We went for a walk to the barn to see the cows. While holding her hand, I carefully led her around the "cow patties" on the way to the barn, and she would stop from time to time to peer curiously down at a pile. We eventually came upon one big "juicy" pile which she noticed. I carefully guided her around it, ... she stopped, and while standing in one spot, and holding my hand, she lifted her right leg, extended it sideways, quickly stretching it as far as she could, and plopped her foot right into the middle of the pile! Her foot sank to the ankle into the brown, stinking murk!
YUCK!
Well, God opened the heavens and instantly gave me a revelation!
He provides a path for us to follow, IN HIS STEPS, and we still, even while walking with Him, and holding His Hand, we still manage to willfully plop our foot into SIN!
Wow!
That really opened my eyes! (now watering from the stink!)..haha..
And even now, every time I step in "doodoo" I am reminded of that lesson!
But, there was another lesson too. In the Book of Job, there is a place outside the city, "Gehenna," which was the massive city rufuse dump... and all "unclean" things, like garbage, trash, dead animal carcasses, and even human and animal dung, were dumped. When a person was sick, they were cast out of the city, since they were deemed "unclean", and they would sit until they were "clean" enough to re-enter society... Imagine, all the stench, flies, and maggots! That is where Job sat during his dilemma, while his so-called-friends preached to him.
After researching Gehenna, I learned that when the garbage got to a certain depth, they would pile it up into a heap, so high, that they would actually build a "watchtower" atop the heap, and use it as look-out, to watch for and warn against enemy attacks upon the city!
That is a perfect example of God's
REDEMPTION!
God takes all the garbage in our lives, all the bad things that have happened to us, and even the willful sin we step into, and He uses it all to "lift us to a higher place" so we have a better perspective!
Wow!
God is so good!
That is one lesson I have applied in my life from that time since!
It was a personal revelation for me!
