I've been thinking about God's creation lately. It says in Genesis 2:7, "...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground..."
We are formed out of dust. Dust. It's usually light in color and goes wherever the wind blows because in its' individual particle form it is light in weight and easy to move.
And then there is rain. When it pours to the earth and hits the dust, something happens. The rain compacts the individual dust particles, meshing them together to form something entirely different: mud. Sticky, dark mud. And mud does not go where the wind blows. It is not a carefree substance. The only way that mud is going anywhere is if somebody picks it up and moves it. The natural world can become quite messy when it rains.
The spiritual world also becomes messy when it rains. Believers= dust. Rain= a multitude of trials and tribulations, deaths and endings, losses and heartaches of a million different kinds. Rain (heartache) falls on the dust (us).
Believers become messy when heartache falls. Sometimes we become mud. We leave our mark on anything (and anyone) we come into contact with because we are dark and sticky. We are no longer carefree. It becomes much harder to move us. The wind may blow but we are stuck to the ground now. We are not dust anymore. Rain changes the form of dust just like heartache changes our spiritual form.
But there is something very important that I believe God appreciates about mud that any child could testify to: you can shape mud. Can't do that with dust...
This is an important concept for me. The pain I experience, the troubles I run into and the heartache I feel serve a very useful purpose, which I need to be assured of: they make me moldable. They make my heart softer so that God has a more pliable substance to work with. Now, I don't particularly ENJOY the process...
"But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, 'Why did You make me like this?' "
(Romans 9:20)
...I think not.
Creation exists for the glory of the Lord and for His children's enjoyment and it delights me that He also uses it for teaching. Examples like this one enable me to hold on during (and dare I say, appreciate) my own heartaches as they fall and make messes out of me.
If nothing else, I will at least say a prayer for my muddy brothers and sisters the next time it rains...
