If you’ve ever traveled in the deep country, nothing but dirt roads, then you’ve probably seen the sign, “Pick your rut carefully, you’ll be in it for the next 20 miles.” You know what it is like.

A story is told of a frog who was hopping across a dirt road and he fell into a rut. He tried to jump out of it, but he couldn’t. He cried out to his friends, “Help me, I’m stuck in this rut.” Well his friends couldn’t pull him out but they offered him encouragement and support, telling him what they had done when they were in similar situations, telling him he could do it, but he said he tried and he couldn’t. After a while it was time for his friends to leave, everyone was very sad, but there was nothing more they could do.

You can imagine their surprise when the next morning they saw their friend at the riverbank. “What happened?” they asked, “We thought you were stuck in the rut.”

“Well, so did I” their friend answered, “I thought it was a hopeless situation, when all of a sudden a truck came down the road and its tires were traveling in my rut!”

Someone once said the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

Please understand, this is not a ‘John Wayne, pull yourself up by your bootstrap’ article. I’m not talking about clinical depression, a serious illness that needs serious professional attention.

The illustrations are meant to remind us and warn us of the dangers of falling into a rut, whether that is in our relationships, our careers, or our faith. In Deuteronomy 1:6 we read that God told the people they had been at the mountain long enough, and God reminded them that the land had been set before them (Deut. 1:8). The Exodus wasn’t about escaping Egypt or going to a mountain (no matter how holy), the purpose was to go to the Promised Land.

God has a plan for each of us, and it is important for us to remember that faith is a movement. So let’s be a FROG (Fully Rely On God) and hop to it!

God Bless, Donn