The Slough of Despond

Last night I had the opportunity to help pace a runner and friend of mine in the Bear100 race near Logan, Utah.  I joined him about 10:00 PM and it was after a day of nearly constant rain for the runners.  The trails had been soaked, and as we started our segment together it was an uphill climb in mud.  We spent an hour trudging through mud until it became very clear to my friend that we would not be reaching the next station before the cutoff time, and we decided to turn back.  After two hours for me in the mud—and nearly 18 for my friend—the journey was ended.  Thinking about this experience I thought of the story of Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress.  He fell into a “very muddy bog” where he and his friend “wallowed for a time until they were totally covered with the slime and mud.”  He “struggled through the muck” until he finally reached the other side and was helped out by a man named Help.  When Christian asked about this “Slough of Despond,” Help told him, “This miry slough is a place that can’t be repaired.  It is a low-lying place where the scum and filth that comes with the conviction of sin drains and collects as the traveling sinner becomes aware of his lost condition.  It is the fears, doubts, and discouraging apprehensions about oneself that arise in his soul.”  Surely this metaphor is one that we all can relate to as we, at various times in our lives, have fears, doubts, and discouragements that make us feel that we are stuck in mud and having a hard time getting out.  

                The scripture that John Bunyan included in this passage was this promise of hope from the Lord: “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings” (Psalms 40:2).  It may be that the Psalmist was thinking of the description of Jehovah as “the stone of Israel” when penning this verse.  And perhaps it was this verse that Helaman had read on the plates of brass that prompted him to encourage his sons to build upon “the rock of our Redeemer” (Helaman 5:12).  When the Lord gave the Sermon on the Mountain maybe He as well was alluding to the verse in Psalms: “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matt. 7:24).   Ultimately our way to get through the mud that seeks to diminish our faith and bring us doubts is to seek the help of our Savior.  There are often no quick fixes for the serious challenges that we face, but turning to the Savior as our foundation is the way through the sloughs of despond.  Whatever the challenges we face, “there is none other way nor name given under heaven” than that of Jesus Christ (2 Nephi 31:21).  He is our foundation and our way through the mud in our own lives.