Last Friday was International
Mud Day. I have never heard of it
before but my wife learned about it on the internet, so it must be true. And given that Robin is fun-loving schoolteacher
she set-up an event to celebrate it. For
two hours there were 6 kids ages 3 through 6 running around in the backyard,
engaged in various activities, nearly all of them making liberal use of mud.
Each child was given a bucket of dirt and access to a
hose. They danced in mud, made mud
cakes, threw mud at each other and wiped their muddy hands on their clothes, and
then on each other’s clothes. When the
muddy children needed a break they rested while eating popsicles and drinking
lemonade. They went through a lot of
popsicles and lemonade!
When I got home from work and Robin was filling me in on the
details she said that here was one particular activity that the boys present
were absolutely enthralled by. On the
property where we are living there is a pick-up truck that hasn’t moved for a
number of years. It has sat so long that
the wheels have sunk into the ground nearly to the axles.
Robin picked up a handful of mud and chucked it at the
truck. The boys were dumbstruck! They didn’t quite understand what was being
made available to them, so she told them clearly, “Throw mud at the truck! As much mud as you want to!” And they did so, with great enthusiasm. They spattered the truck from front to back,
on all sides.
While there were some boundaries to the Mud Day celebration,
such as no throwing mud at the moms or the house, something that they had
assumed to out-of-bounds as a target for their mess-making, a parked truck, was
actually in-bounds. And they took great
delight in this knowledge. In our human
nature we sometimes push back at boundaries as being restrictive to the things
that we want to do. But as the children
learned, there can also be great delight while staying within the boundaries.
One of the things we learn as we follow Jesus is that God has
set boundaries for our lives, something the Psalmist makes clear in the writing
of Psalm 16, particularly verse
6, which in the NIV reads:
“The
boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely
I have a delightful inheritance.”
The ways in which God makes known his boundaries for us
varies. Some of them are very clear,
such as in the Ten
Commandments. Others take a bit more
discernment to determine, calling us to prayerfully consider the words of
Scripture and apply them to the circumstances we are in. An example would be in the words of Galatians 6: 16-24. Paul lists a number of things that are clearly
outside of God’s boundaries on our behavior and then follows it with a short
list of characteristics that describe what is found within his will. If what we are considering is in agreement
with those characteristics then we can be assured that we are living within God’s
boundaries.
God’s boundaries are not meant to oppress us, but to give us
freedom. Psalm 16:9-11 closes with this
confident assurance of the joy to be found living within God’s boundaries:
“Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole
being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells
secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to
Sheol,
or let your holy one see
corruption.
You make known to me the path of
life;
in your presence there
is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are
pleasures forevermore.”
Like the children throwing mud at the truck, may you know
great delight living within the boundaries God has established on your
life. He delights in our joy, and our
delight in him makes his glory known to the world.
