Judy could almost taste those plump, juicy raspberries. How she loved them! There they were, dead ripe, just a few feet away in the family garden, and she could not pick them! Her father had told her that the ground was too soaked from the long rainy spell, and that she would “sink to China” if she tried to pick them. “Stay out of that garden,” he had warned.
“They’ll all fall off and just be wasted,” she grumbled. “There has to be a way to get them. I’ve just got to figure out how!” she thought.
It wasn’t long before she had figured out a plan. Once she was sure that her father was not around, she put on her boots to go outside. Awkwardly holding two flat boards (each about two feet wide by three feet long) and her bucket, she snuck into the garden. Her idea was that the boards would act like little rafts on top of the mud, and she would move them forward as needed. They worked fairly well, but it was hard to pry them up from the mud. As she struggled along she began to wonder if the berries were really worth all this. And then some troublesome thoughts kept coming into her mind. She remembered Bible verses her parents would often repeat, such as, “the way of transgressors [sinners] is hard” (Prov. 13:1515Good understanding giveth favor: but the way of transgressors is hard. (Proverbs 13:15)) and something about the wicked “set in slippery places.” (Psa. 73:1818Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. (Psalm 73:18).)
Suddenly, Judy lost her balance from a too-long reach. Oh! Oh! To keep from falling, she had planted one foot firmly in the ooze... and it sank to the top of her boot and was still sinking! Again, a Bible verse flashed across her mind, “I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing.” Psa. 69:22I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. (Psalm 69:2). Judy knew these Bible verses were referring to the Lord Jesus’ feeling on Calvary’s cross while He was suffering for the sins of those who trust in Him.
But right at the moment she had to get out of this mire. Her one foot that was still on the board saved the day. Quickly slipping out of her buried boot, she squatted on her board to dig it out. At last she was able to back up to firm ground.
Judy thought and thought about the mire. “To the Lord Jesus, what was the mire? All the awful filth and badness of our sins — my sins!” she answered herself. “And here I am, sinning some more! Oh, how awful!” Thinking further she murmured, “It really is best to obey. Will I ever learn? Anyway, I think I’ll always remember this miry experience. It’s really something the way those Psalms tell the story of my Lord’s suffering on the cross. There is also that one that says, ‘All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me.’ (Psa. 42:77Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. (Psalm 42:7)). To think He went through it all for a sinner like me!”
Later in her warm, clean room Judy kneeled down to thank the Lord Jesus for three things: sinking beneath the deep mire of her sins and bearing the punishment for them, rising in complete victory from the dead, and forgiving her disobedience that very day.
Have you realized these same things and thanked Him?
ML-12/11/1988