It's the pits!

 

It's the pits! It's hard! I wanna take my ball and go home!

The late Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, is quoted as saying to his impatient, frustrated, at-her-limit daughter, "My dear, if you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you."

Oy vey. There are some young people I should say that to.

(Grin)

But I'm digressing.

We find ourselves at Psalm 40 this week. And after that, we will focus on two psalms (42 and 43) at the same time (adventurous of me, I know) but they ALL seem to be related. And the Spirit seems to be nudging me that this is needed.

Really needed. I don't know who these studies are for. I know that I learn a lot from them, myself. But sometimes I hear from folks who read and study here, and I have the honor of learning that something here was helpful for them. And I cry. And I get on my knees and thank Him, and get up with renewed determination to keep going.

So, with the expectation that I will gain from this, and that someone out there might glean a helpful thought, too, let's dig in! (I ask that you read and re-read Psalm 40 each day with me, so that the verses will be familiar when we point to them. Good? Good. Thanks!)

Sometimes we think "life is the pits!" We've said before that Jesus told us (well, actually He told the disciples, but He knew we would be coming along later and treasure His words....) to expect trials. Listen to this:

 “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.  “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:1-2,33)

In spite of this and other similar scriptures, many of us have a hard time when we get hit with various trials. We profess Christ, but we stumble and even may fall away for a time . . . If we are going to persevere with Christ, we must know in advance; we must even steel ourselves, because it's coming! We will face times when we are in the pit, and we must know what to do when we land there. The key? Rather than turning our faces away from the Lord, we must turn toward Him to rescue us.

Psalm 40 is a song about "the pits." It kinda naturally falls into two sections: in the first half, David tells us how God got him out of one of these pits and he sings praise to God for being rescued. 

But wait! He didn't live happily ever after with no more slips into the miry clay. Instead, it is pretty evident from the second half of the psalm that he is in another pit. He cries out to the Lord again and He is delivered. We're going to see that David learned his lesson in the first pit, and he knew how to wait on the Lord to get him out of the second one! He learned the secret of waiting "intently" and then proclaiming His goodness when He answered.

Let's look at the second half first, shall we? I'm squirrely, that way. (Grin) When you are in the pit, David says, wait intently upon the Lord.

What pit? 

Did someone just say that?

OK, let's explore that. What IS the pit?

Well, the pit could be any one (or more) of a number of trials in our lives. David actually doesn't specify here! It seems from verse twelve that the consequences of his sins are haunting him, and in verses fourteen and fifteen, he refers to many enemies who wanted to destroy him. (What? Again? This boy collects enemies like my cat used to collect mice.)  But again, he doesn't exactly say what the first pit was, except to describe it as a "pit of destruction" and "miry clay" in verse two. Scholars say it could be those enemies, or it could be physical illness or emotional distress. I guess since it isn't specified, we can each relate our trials to his situation - and take comfort and hope. Whatever the problem was, it was a big one: not only did he say it was a pit, but the miry clay? That's the kind of cling-to-your-boot mud that coats and holds on, virtually assuring that your feet are going to slip out from under you! And that kind of mud at the bottom of the pit? Wow. You're trapped, and there is no way to free yourself.

If any of us have not yet cried out to God to save us from judgment and punishment for our sins, then we are truly in a deep pit. And there is no human way out. We might not feel like we're there. Maybe we think life is going just fine. But here is how Paul describes our future without Christ:

This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might (II Thessalonians 1:7b-9)

Now, as believers, our "pits" could be poor health, betrayal, job loss, estranged children, or any other overwhelming problem. It could be our sins, or the actions of others. 

Climbing out . . . . don't be proud, and don't tell fibs.

How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust,
And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who become involved in falsehood. (v 4, NASB)

Sometimes even strong Christians are tempted when in a pit; it's easy to grab onto any seeming way of escape. Even if we profess in the Lord, it's appealing to think there's a "quick fix" even if it means we compromise our faith.  The proud that David mentions are those who boast in their own abilities. It's hard for us humans to admit our personal weakness; we'd rather use what we call ingenuity and effort to get out of a crisis.  Or, like in the last part of verse four, if we are in a jam and it appears that a "little white lie" will get us out, we might be tempted to use falsehoods. We tell ourselves that "it's just this once" and "I just HAVE to get out of this."

David's guidance here is that it's always wrong to trust in anything or anyone other than the Lord to get out of our pit - even if it works.