Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Psalm 32:9
About Mules
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. They’re said to be more hardy than horses and more intelligent than donkeys.
Still, being likened to a mule isn’t exactly a compliment.
My uncle owned a mule named Petey. Petey was both strong and headstrong. Life on the farm was good for Petey the Mule.
But one day, which happened to be manure hauling day, “Petey decided he no longer liked his ears touched. This caused problems putting on his halter and bridle,” Uncle John posted. “He developed some escape routes which included trying to run Farmer John over; thankfully this isn’t Farmer John’s first rodeo.”
Thankfully, God can relates to mules too. He’s familiar with beasts that charge and beasts that avoid.
But, biblically, what is it that makes mules so mulish?
Hint: It’s what our kids do when they refuse to come and confess that he stole the candy or broke the lamp or lost his Fitbit, again.
That is, they refuse to come to us until after they’re busted outright or the guilt gets so heavy they simply can’t bear it. That’s mulish.
And foolish.
About The Most Happy-Making Thing You Can Do
In Psalm 32, this is the behavior in view: Refusing to come and confess to the one who freely forgives.
Staying away from God when we sin is irrational-without understanding. Because confessing to the God who already knows and freely forgives is one of the most happy-making things we can ever do.
In fact, that’s how David begins Psalm 32, with a double-whammy description, and prescription, for happiness:
Happy is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
The way to be happy and blessed is to go and confess.
Why Mulish Is Foolish
Which is exactly why the next two verses in Psalm 32 contrast this path to happiness:
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Pity the fool, the mule, who does that- who stays silent and far away from the Master.
But mules do. They are silent, slow and stubborn. Mules need pressure applied to come to the master. They must be curbed with bit and bridle. That’s why God’s hand feels heavy on us sometimes, like Farmer John’s did on Petey the Mule that day.
I put pressure on you when you were sinning and neglecting me, our Master might explain, so that you’d come back to me. But I wish you’d just come freely. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
Not Confessing Is Irrational
In case you missed it, avoiding the master is irrational. It is not acting in accord with the truth that repentance brings refreshment and confession clears the conscience. It is living as if estranged relationships and hidden sin are to be preferred over restored relationships and forgiveness. That is foolish. Mulish.
Like when son-who-shall-not-be-named confesses to eating my prized Dove Dark only after I show him the wrapper I found under his bed and not a moment before.
To be human rather than horse or mule, is to be rational. To be rational is to realize that we will be happier when our sin is confessed and covered by God.
And that when we cover it, he will not, but that when we uncover our sin before God, he will cover it (Psalm 32)
Life on the Farm
Mules live on farms. Here John Piper expands the image for us:
Maybe we should try to picture God’s people as a farmyard of all sorts of animals. God cares for his animals, he shows them where they need to go, and supplies a barn for their protection. But there is one beast on this farm that gives God an awful time, namely, the mule…
God likes to get his animals to the barn for food and shelter by simply calling them.
Or even with a look.
Steered With a Look, or a Bit?
Psalm 32:8 says, “I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”
My Mom says that I was disciplined with a look as a child. All it took was the look, and I’d usually come around. I’d curb my tongue or knock it off or change my tune.
If only the grown-up Abigail was always so sensitive to God’s eye.
But sometimes I’m a mule. Sometimes God has to put the bridle of suffering on me and drag me from danger. I completely agree with John Piper that,
A guilty conscience and all the agonies that go with it is a merciful gift to the unrepentant.
Piper continues the barnyard analogy, “So God gets in his pickup truck and goes out in the field, puts the bit and bridle in the mule’s mouth, hitches it to the truck, and drags him stiff-legged and snorting all the way into the barn.”
But we’d be better off and so much happier if we just came with a look or a call.
Repentance Brings Refreshment
But isn’t all this come and confess talk very gloomy? you ask.
C.S. Lewis answers that question like this,
It is not even, in the long run, very gloomy. A serious attempt to repent and to really know one’s own sin is in the long run a lightening and relieving process. Of course, there is bound to be a first dismay and often terror and later great pain, yet that is much less in the long run than the anguish of a mass of unrepented and unexamined sins, lurking in the background of our minds. It is the difference between the pain of a tooth about which you should go to the dentist, and the simple straight-forward pain which you know is getting less and less every moment when you have had the tooth out.
C.S. Lewis, “Miserable Offenders,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1970) 120-121.
I bear witness: confessing is happy-making. In the moment, it’s humbling and hard and it hurts. But, “‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free, ‘Tis a gift to come down to where we ought to be.”
Isn’t it?
In fact, isn’t being forgiven about the most lightening and relieving, soul-healing and refreshing gift a sinful soul can ever receive?
In Acts 3, Peter preached just that:Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins mat be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
Repentance brings refreshment.
How Not to be a Mule
Sometimes it is the bit of affliction and the bridle of suffering that makes us come to him. Or, to borrow David’s words, to stay near him.
It is much to be deplored that we so often need to be severely chastened before we will obey. We ought to be as a feather in the wind, wafted readily in the breath of the Holy Spirit, but alas! we lie like motionless logs, and stir not with heaven itself in view. Those cutting bits of affliction show how hard mouthed we are, those bridles of infirmity manifest our headstrong and willful manners. We should not be treated like mules if there was not so much of the ass about us. If we will be fractious, we must expect to be kept in with a tight rein. Oh, for grace to obey the Lord willingly…
C.H. Spurgeon, Commentary on Psalm 32
We should not be treated like mules if there was not so much ass about us. Oh, for grace to obey the Lord willingly. Ouch. And amen.
Do you know this?
I mean, know it? I confess that I must re-learn that confession is good for the soul. Like when I sent that early morning apology text (there have been plenty of others since) and when I made a mule of myself on an Irish mountain. And this weekend when I marched up the steps away from a sister, and my mule snorts woke me up and turned me right back down to confess, “I’m sorry I was rude.”
In summary, not being a mule means staying near God without being forced. It means praying to God before his hand is heavy on you. It means confessing your sins to Him straightaway. Before you’re busted.
That is how NOT to be a mule.
And when I do come to him and confess, he will freely forgive. He will tenderly take my chin in his hand and lift my humbled head.
My unbridled, forgiven head.
You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head.
Psalm 3:3
