Ruts

I was born in one of the towns that was literally named "The Middle of Nowhere", meaning it was a ridiculous distance from any significant population and surrounded by giant wheat fields and homesteads spread out across acres and acres. I didn't end up living out there where my dad grew up in Eastern Montana, but we would go back to visit every summer.
There's an old road that leaves Grandpa's house out the back. At one time it was gravel but over the years, the rocks have gotten pounded back from whence they came, buried in the mud during the spring rains and pushed in further by tractors and trucks that dared to take that back route. It became more of a machinery entrance, even though it was probably a shorter distance from the county road than the actual driveway was. One summer when I was there, we couldn't take that old road in a car. The ruts had worn so deep, and the wild brown grass that grew between them had grown so long, that any car would high center trying to make it through. Even in a truck or van, you had to take it at a pretty quick speed to ensure that you didn't get jammed somewhere up there.
Those are ruts, worn away by years and years of the same thing happening over and over and over again, and no one taking the time or energy needed to rebuild the road. No one taking a few minutes to dig up that center and relay the gravel.
I've been noticing ruts in my own life lately. It started in January on the youth group retreat when I started to wonder if I was even connecting with God anymore. I felt so distant, even though I was "doing" the right things. I'm not a super emotional person, so an emotional connection isn't even what I was feeling was missing. It was just... lacking.
On that youth group retreat God revealed a couple of lies that have centered themselves in my heart.
Over the last the couple of months I've been asking the same question, in those rare quiet moments that I have to talk to God without interruptions. On Sunday we sang this song called "His Mercy is More", and I just realized how truly sinful my heart is. It's one thing to say it and to know it, but to really see it again, to just have the excuses and lies stripped away to reveal the truth inside there, and see that you really don't have much of anything good to offer right now, is something different. It was something I needed.
Because the sin in my life is a rut. It's places I drive over and over, routes I take the same way every day, and I've stopped noticing the way my wheels just settle in there and follow the tracks because it's just become part of me. Part of what I'm used to.
It was probably an epiphany on Sunday, seeing that some of the patterns I've become accustomed to are what is keeping me from God. From experiencing the power He's given, from the life I am so used to having. I don't even know how long it's been. I don't know what all needs to change, either. I just know that I need to examine the patterns I've put in place, even the routine of my days, and see which ones are pulling me into those tracks that lead down the wrong road.
I guess it's what the Psalmist was talking about with the whole "search me Father and know my heart, try me and know my mind. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me into the way of everlasting."
I think it puts us in a better position to know God when we can see ourselves for who we really are without His transforming. And it puts us in a place where we can see Him work in our lives better.
We have ice ruts on our driveway right now. Big ones that happened during a quick thaw that became slush covering everything, and then a second freeze that still hasn't broken. every time I drive through them and feel my stupid van get tugged down into that icy hole, I think about where my heart is and how I want it to change.