When I was around eight, we were visiting some cousins out on the farm and as all kids back then we played tag. I went zipping around the barn and stepped in a slick patty. I fell, slid and rolled through a copious amount of bovine excrement. When I was able to stand up I went to the porch and yelled for Mom as the other cousins laughed in consolation. Mom came to the door and was horrified to see her son’s new version of playing cowboy. She ordered to me to strip, in front of the cousins, and hosed me down. Fortunately, one of the cousins was male and my size so I was not forced to wear a dress home. I was embarrassed, but clean and Mom still took me home.
As I look back on that now, I am reminded of how many times as a Christian that I was either running from the devil or playing tag with the world that I have slipped and fallen into as much manure as that day. As I ran to God for help or confessed, His mercy stripped me and hosed me off as the devil and his minions laughed. Sometimes it was embarrassing as others saw me spiritually naked, but in the end I was clean and God still called me Son. Like Mom, He took care of the offending substance and smell because He loved the boy covered in it more than He abhorred the filth. It is good to have a loving mother, but far greater to have such a loving Father in God and a savior like Jesus Christ.