Praising God is sort of like … Mud Between Your Toes

Does praising God come easily for you? Or is God’s awesomeness sometimes more intimidating than inspiring?

Being a freshman can be tough. You leave junior high science class believing that the amoeba is the lowest form of life on the planet, only to have high school upperclassmen tell you you’re wrong: freshmen are the planet’s lowest life form.

My school’s freshman initiation was particularly brutal. For a solid week, we freshmen had to wear humiliating things. We had to eat humiliating things. We had to do humiliating things. We began to feel that the week’s objective was to humiliate us.

The climax to initiation week was a tug-of-war over “the pit.” About twenty feet wide and five feet deep, this trough of terror was full of oozing, gushy, who-knows-what-else-is-in-there mud. Seniors delighted in telling us that there might be a leftover freshman corpse or two at the bottom of the pit and that we should not be alarmed if we felt something clutching at our ankles when we went in. As my five-boy tug-of-war team lined up against the varsity football team’s offensive line, I understood why no one ever lived to become a sophomore without a dip into the pit.

Usually the advance hype in situations like this is worse than the actual experience. Not this time. The pit was as awful as its reputation. It looked awful, then in rapid succession it smelled, felt, and tasted simply awful. I can’t remember wanting out of a place more quickly.

For me, the kindest moment of freshman initiation week came when a semi-sympathetic sophomore pulled me up out of the pit, and helped me sit down on a big rock to rinse and towel off. In that brief moment of empathy, he won my grateful admiration. Three days later, when I saw him in the locker room after gym class, I was still cleaning dried mud from between my toes.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.                      (Psalm 40:1-3)

I really tried to get that mud cleaned off, but I’m not sorry it stayed in between my toes for a while. While the mud reminded me of the disgusting place I’d been, the fact that it was dried and in an obscure place also told me that it was over. I was out of the pit. I had a new sophomore friend who had taken pity on me, and I wasted no time telling everyone I could about him. He had helped me out of the pit, and on this side of its murky horror, I could look forward to the coming school year, even as a freshman.

Like the writer of Psalm 40 says, God has lifted me out of a pit, too. He’s brought me out of a disgusting, dangerous place, and set my feet on a rock. That’s why whenever I’m having difficulty expressing my praise to him, I always look for the dried mud between my spiritual toes. Remembering what he’s done for me has a way of putting a new song of praise in my mouth. And the more people who hear it, the more sophomores like me there will be on the other side of the pit, helping lowly freshmen out of the mud.

How’s the mud between your toes?

Have you reflected recently on what Jesus did for you when he died? Does the memory of where you were compared to where you are make you want to praise him in a new way today? Do you ever feel like you’ve slid back into the pit? Might crying out to God and waiting patiently for him work this time?

You might also take a look at … Psalm 18:16-18; Ephesians 2:1-7