From The Backwoods Pew

Can’t Fall Out of a Mud Hole

hole. Time flies while you are wait- haps see our own despair, to see the ing for someone to pull you out. agony we might be in. We too might Can you say “Solitaire,” boys and wonder if our prayers are simply

On one of my back through that same hole in girls? bouncing off of the ceiling, returnfirst days in order to leave the property, and that You can be talked into trying to ing to us null and void. Like Job, forestry, I found a is another story. drive through a mud hole. Don’t lis- stuck in the mud hole of life, crying forester’s rendition You can walk into a mud hole. ten. It will result in more solitaire. for help, yet he is getting no of “Murphy’s While crossing a deep swamp on “And now my soul is poured out response. And to that, we would be Law.” That is the foot, what looked at first to be dry, because of my plight; the days of right, for we share a lot with Job. law that states, hard mud, turned out to be only a affliction take hold of me. My His predicament is ours; his comamong many additions and variaAntill baked crust. When I stepped on it, the mud hole swallowed my boot, bones are pierced in me at night, and my gnawing pains take no rest. plaint is ours. We are stuck in the mud hole of life—dirty, covered tions, “If anything can go wrong, it my leg, and was working on the rest By great force my garment is disfig- with shame. We cry out to be clean, will go wrong.” The one that I put of me by the time I crawled out. ured; it binds me about as the collar to again have a relationship with on my wall nearly 30 years ago You can meet a snake in a mud of my coat. He has cast me into the God. Our cries echo that of another includes this piece of wisdom: “You hole. While stuck up to my knees mire [MUD HOLE], and I have who shared that same predicament. can’t fall out of a mud hole.” I have and looking for some high ground on become like dust and ashes.”—Job There is one who gave up all he spent my career trying to prove that which to crawl, I found it to be occu- 30:16-19 had; one that took on suffering; one law as unconstitutional, but to no pied by a rather large cottonmouth Job, in calling out to God, that called out to heaven, wondering avail. I submit the following: moccasin snake. He too was muddy, declares that God has thrown him where the help was:

You can jump into a mud hole. so I let him keep the high ground. It into a mud hole, into the mire. He is “And about the ninth hour Jesus One day, while trying to cross a was the Christian thing to do. in agony. All that he had, all the cried out with a loud voice, saying, flowing stream and standing on a You can lose a boot in a mud blessings, now seem to be lying in ‘My God, My God, why have You solid sand bar, I decided I could hole. Ask the young lad with me the mud hole with him; they have forsaken Me?’”—Matthew 27:46 jump to another sand bar in mid- who was looking for arrowheads become worthless. In his despair, he We can’t fall out of the mud hole. stream with little difficulty. This one day after a heavy rain had calls out yet again: We are stuck. The results of sin particular sandbar, however, was turned a clay hillside into mud. “I cry out to You, but You do not cover us. The pain of living in a obviously floating as I went straight When I heard him cry out, he was answer me; I stand up, and You fallen world—of dealing with canup to my knees in mud. walking in his socks, his boots regard me. But You have become cer and divorce, or of fighting greed

You can drive into a mud hole. In sticking in the mud behind him. cruel to me; with the strength of and corruption—pulls us down and this case, like a tiger trap, the hole You can lose a hip wader in a Your hand You oppose me. You lift holds us. With no hope, no way out, had a layer of ice across it. In fact, mud hole. This is really just a taller me up to the wind and cause me to and no way to get clean on our own, the ice was level and even with the boot that requires a deeper mud ride on it; You spoil my success. our Father, who loved us, sent his road, giving the appearance of hole. I had to pull it out separately For I know that You will bring me Son Jesus into the mud hole. In the being part of the road. My truck after I got my leg out of it. Like the to death, and to the house appointed mud hole he shared our pain, our crashed through the ice and into the young lad, I was walking in my for all living.”—Job 30:20-23 confusion, and our cries for delivermud hole beneath. I eventually was socks. It would be easy for you and I to ance. And on the cross, he answered extracted, but then I had to drive You can spend hours in a mud look at Job and his trouble, and per- Job. On the cross, he secured for Job, his soul. The rest of life is but dirt and ashes when compared to the soul. The mud hole doesn’t matter if the soul has been rescued. Just like the sole of your foot might be stuck in a mud hole, your soul is too. Only Jesus can rescue it. Thank God that he loved us so, that Jesus came into the mud hole, so our soul could fall out of the mud hole, clean and secure. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”— Psalms 51:10,11

Excerpt from “Sideroads, Snares, and Souls” Brad Antill author. Find it at www.onatreeforestry.com

Brad Antill has been a forester in the woods and swamps of the Southeast Coastal Plain for over 30 years. Be sides being a forester, he is also an or dained minister of the Gospel, and to gether they combine as his two passions. He and his wife Cindy creat ed On-A-Tree Forestry as a way of sharing his unique views of the gospel story. They share the fingerprints of God that are revealed every day in those same woods and swamps. Brad is a graduate of The Ohio State University forestry program, and a registered forester in North Carolina and West Virginia.