SPRING had come to the midwest where a little boy named Eric lived. April rains had changed the frozen ground into mud. It was that black mud they call prairie gumbo, perhaps the stickiest mud in the world.
The roads were covered with it. The cars were covered with it. It stuck to everything and everybody that touched it. The only safe path for a small boy was on the narrow sidewalk made of boards.
Along this board-walk trotted Eric wearing new high rubber boots. But how tempting that sea of soft mud looked! What fun to walk in it with new high rubbers!
He must try it! Leaving the boards he struck out into the gumbo. But almost his first steps told him he had made a mistake. Both feet soon sank into the mud so that he could not walk. He raised his right foot but his boot remained in the mud. He raised his left foot and that boot too, stayed in the mire. In his sock feet he tried to return to the board walk, but found he could not move an inch. He was hopelessly stuck. And as he sank deeper into the gumbo he began to cry.
But unknown to Eric, someone had been watching the whole performance from above. It was a lineman high up on a telephone pole. Quickly his spiked heels bit into the wooden pole as he came down to the rescue.
The lineman strode into the mud and with powerful arms carefully lifted Eric “out of the miry clay.” Soon he was safely on the solid boards again, boots and all—thanks to his strong friend, the telephone man!
Eric is now a man. When he tells how he was saved from the black mud by the telephone man, he also tells how he was saved from his black sins by the Man in the Glory — the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus for our sakes descended into the horrible pit, into the miry clay of sin into which we all had sunk — because He suffered on the cross, the Just for the unjust to bring us to God — “Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour.” (Acts 5:3131Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. (Acts 5:31)).
How sweet to know Him as my Saviour and sing with Him: “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.” Psalm 40:2,32He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:2‑3).
ML-04/28/1974