If you want clean water...

In the early 1990's when we lived in Houston we attended a very large church whose pastor's name was Dr. Ed Young.  Dr. Young dressed impeccably and enunciated his words perfectly and everything in that church was done with excellence and formality.  In fact, you'd probably never know that he was a country boy born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi. His Wikipedia page states that his family was poor and he didn't have shoes until he was in the third grade.  Sometimes you'd catch a glimpse of the "country" Ed Young when he would use some sermon illustrations.  They were "country fried," if you know what I'm saying.

It's been 24 years and I can still remember one of his illustrations.  He was talking about the change that Jesus Christ makes in your life when you become a believer. Dr. Young said you when you come to know Him, you repent and begin following Him and He begins chiseling away the imperfections, bad habits, and sin that we're living with.  He made the comment that if we are true believers, people will know us by our fruit and our lives will be clean like clear water.  Then he said:

"You're not gonna get clean water 'til you get the hogs outta the creek!" - Dr. Ed Young  

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Metaphorical clear water is vitally important to our spiritual life.  Clear water is a basic human need that is important to our physical health and clear water is also vital to our animal's health as well.  We have a 150 gallon water trough that our cows drink out of.  In dry spells, I see the chickens perched up on the lip of the trough drinking from it as well.

Over time, from cows dropping grass into it, leaves blowing into it and decomposing, along with sediment and algae growth, the water in the trough loses its clarity and gets dirty.  To add to that list of things that dirty the water, I capture rainwater from the roof of our house and pour it into the trough.  Little rocks from the roofing shingles make their way into the trough and further 'muddies' the water.

I like to keep the water clean for our cows, so several times a year I'll "get the hogs outta the creek." There is an easy way to do this as there is a big plug on the bottom of the trough to loosen and drain.  However, that would make a big mud hole around the trough worse than the one that exists now.  There's more than one way to skin a cat.  I let the cows drink the water most of the way down and then I jump in the trough barefooted with a bucket and scoop out the remaining water and green sludge from the bottom, pouring all that in other buckets that I'll used to water the fruit trees with.  Then I use a rag and clean water to scrub the sides and bottom real good and rinse it out again.  Then I refill the trough and this yields perfectly clear water as shown below.  You can see right down to the bottom.

Clear water in the trough once again

This process is one that is on-going and has to be repeated time after time.  As I think about it, it is similar to my life.  Just when I clean up some mud in my life, new mud emerges.  Hogs in the creek...  Gotta get 'em out if you want clear water!