a way out

The Pit is dark and lonely. It is deep. It smells of earth and leaves and mold. The damp makes the cold all the more penetrating. The Pit can envelop you even when you are running errands in Cool Springs on Mallory Lane. It can grab you up in front of the tv when you sit with your boys watching sports. It can put icy fingers around your neck when you lounge with friends over dinner. 

The Pit is familiar. My Pit has furniture like a coffee table with magazines dog-eared and coffee-stained. It says pull up a chair and stay a while.  It is nonetheless dark and lonely. What does your pit look like?

We are in a season of wharp-speed, like many with children or jobs or places to be. Our rhythm has changed in recent months. I don’t like change. The Pit calls my name more often in a season like this. I am likely to fall into the Pit when I am running and have to keep going and don’t have time to stop and be still. 

This morning, however, I stopped. I read about David’s Pit. David says in Psalm 40, “I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.  Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.”

David knew the Pit. And his story shows how God lifted him out. I know the Pit. And my story this morning tells of a God who gets in the Pit and gives me a leg up to see out. He gives me strength to grab hold of the grass and His Long Arm boosts me up over the edge. 

There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. - Corrie Ten Boom