We are so use to some colors in this world. Coming from “Colorful Colorado” I’m in love with the colors I get to see daily. The mountains have that unique purple glory, the sky is so very blue, and the chile is green (yeah, Shane, it’s a thing, educate yourself.) I think that we become so accustomed to the colors that we see. There becomes this idea that “this is just how things are MEANT to be” and when that changes we don’t know entirely how to react to it.
For the past week and a half the only thing separating me from the ground has been a thin pair of sandals meaning my feet got dirty. Like, filthy. John 13:8 takes on a whole new meaning now. It was not just that my feet were dirty. I’ve hiked miles in those sandals and had dirty feet before but this time they weren’t just covered in dirt, they were covered in mud. Red mud. The kind of red that leaves an unmistakable stain.
Such a shock to find that the earth must have been broken in this strange land the locals called Georgia because, as we all know, mud is brown (chile is still green though) and any deviation is simply absurd. Red is not a bad color by any means. Colorado has red rocks. We all bleed red. If you leave me in direct sunlight for more than 30 seconds I will turn bright red for about a week. Mud, on the other hand, is NOT red.
This was my initial thought, but at the end of the week I found myself unable to deny the fact that this mud was just a shade shy of crimson. I couldn’t deny it because we were all covered in it *insert sarcastic comment about bucket showers.* Then I got all deep and philosophical about the color of dirt. I found myself asking the question “do I walk around everyday covered in mud unable to see it because I’ve convinced myself that is just the color of life?”
My teammates jumping for joy after playing in a big mud puddle. Those goons.
Let me explain. Jesus calls out the falsehoods we hold as truth regularly throughout the Bible. In one instance He says that we judge others without ever coming to terms with our own sin. “Take the log out of your own eye, and the you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” Matthew 7:5. Sometimes we meet people living in sin that is different than our own and are startled by it simply because their sin looks different than ours. We are sitting covered in our brown mud, insisting that it’s ok because that is just how mud is suppose to look, and we cast judgement on those covered in a different kind of mud. We demand that they hop in the nearest shower (or just grab the closest five gallon bucket, same thing) and cleanse themselves. We refuse to allow someone so filthy into our lives because that mud can’t mix with ours because it ours is normal and theirs is “off color.”
Ready for the good news? Yeah, me too. Jesus was unafraid of our mud. He did not hesitate to wash the feet of the disciples and never once did He say “Thomas, really man? You are covered in the wrong color mud. Get yourself together and then come back.” In fact, He says that if we don’t allow Him to wash us then we have no place with Him.
So even though it seems I am still washing away the mud from my training camp, (seriously this stuff gets everywhere) God has called me to focus more on what He is washing away from me. What sin in my life am I letting slide because it is so casually acceptable in everyday life? The best part of all of this is that God is not asking me, or you for that matter, to focus solely on that sin, but on the fact that He is taking care of it. He makes me clean. He washes my feet. He is not scared of my mud no matter what it looks like.
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