Warning: Jesus Talk
I don’t know whether kids are still allowed to play in the mud. Growing up in Michigan, we had the most beautiful black dirt to play in, and if you dug far enough (on your way to China) you would hit bands of gold dirt. Add some water and voila! Mud.
The best place to play was underneath the front porch of our old farmhouse. It was just tall enough to sit up straight, and there was plenty of fresh, black dirt. We would spend hours mixing mud, making mud pies, and trying to get each other to eat it. “It’s good! It’s chocolate pudding! Mom just brought it out.”
The funny thing is, my husband grew up in New York state, and they did the very same thing. He and one of his brothers would do the same thing to the kid next door that the kids in my family tried to do to each other. He told me one time he went in the house and got one of his mother’s good crystal bowls, and actually got the kid next door to eat a bite of mud after telling him it was chocolate pudding.
When you know someone, when you trust someone - like a sibling or a friend next door - you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they say it’s chocolate pudding, you want to trust them enough to take a big old bite, even though you can clearly tell it is mud.
Sometimes you know something in your heart, and yet you feel yourself being swayed by someone who you are supposed to be able to trust.
There have been so many times when I’ve been confused by a sermon or teaching or even just a conversation with a so-called Christian where I know they are trying to feed me something, telling me something that isn’t true. My initial reaction is to trust them, but my instincts are telling me something isn’t right. If you question them, then clearly you are not a Christian. You are a sinner.
If you are the kid under the porch, you can look at your surroundings. Look at the facts. You are sitting in a pile of dirt, you have been making mud pies, and you know 100% that the glossy brown mess being handed to you is certainly not chocolate pudding.
Trust your instincts. Sometimes it is as simple as looking at your surroundings and being able to easily tell you are being fed a line of bull. Other times, you might have to dig. Go to the Word. Find out for yourself. Find that band of gold that lets you know you’ve dug deep enough to find the truth.
Psalm 118:9 ESV: It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
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