No mother alive has not dealt with the problem of muddy boots.  You clean the floor; they track in dirt.  You sweep again; there is still more dirt.  Clean floors require unrelenting diligence.  Couldn’t they just leave their shoes at the door?  One would think so, but it just doesn’t happen.

Muddy boots don’t just affect floors.  Sometimes we let the muddiness of sin dirty our lives and souls.  The new year is good time to pause and reflect and leave those muddy boots at the door.

We stand on the threshold
of a new year
wearing the muddy boots
of the past –
old grudges, unforgiven slights, lingering sin.

Do we choose to soil the new year with our muddy boots,
or shall we leave them at the door,
and begin anew –
in the grace of our Father –
with footsteps of faith, love, peace, and forgiveness?

God has provided the way for us to begin anew with clean lives.  We simply have to ask.

Philippians 3:¹³ Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, ¹⁴ I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

I John 1:⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.