Get Out of the Pit - Part 1 of 3

-The following blog message is posted in three parts and is based on Psalm 40:1-3. Part 1 deals with David finding himself in “an horrible pit” and how he “waited patiently for the Lord”. Part 2 covers how David came out of the pit. And finally, Part 3 explains how awesome and powerful God is and how we need to trust Him and get out of the pit!

Hillsong United - Reaching For You

I can't believe the way
Your love has got a hold on me
Each morning I wake to find You near
You lift me above my fears
And set my feet on solid ground
All of my days belong to You

And I breathe in Your breath of life that fills my heart
You are my all consuming fire

I stand here before You
In wide opened wonder
Amazed at the glory of You
The power of heaven
Revealing Your purpose in me
As I'm reaching for You

This song, by the group known as Hillsong, is one that I listen to when I am exercising. A few weeks ago, the Lord brought a certain phrase from the song to my attention - “You lift me above my fears And set my feet on solid ground”. You know how it is when God just “lifts words out of a song” or “off of the page”, and you become so keenly aware of those words? I couldn't stop thinking about them.

When I would wake up on the following mornings, this is the phrase that was in my mind, and I began to praise God for doing just that – “lifting me above my fears and setting my feet on solid ground” before I even got out of the bed.

Several days after this, I was reading in Psalms during breakfast. It was one of those times when I didn't know what to read and just opened the Bible. Psalm 40 was right in front of me. As I began to read these verses, I realized that they were the words of the song:

Psalm 40:1-3:

“I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

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.
And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.”

Naturally I had to begin the study of this scripture, and this is what I have learned:

David is lamenting the fact that he is in “an horrible pit”. “Horrible” means “uproar, destruction, tumult, extremely unpleasant or disagreeable”. And “pit” means a “hole, a cistern, a prison, or a dungeon”. David was in a state of confinement or captivity – a situation that was extremely unpleasant and disagreeable for him. So David was really down in the dumps! He didn't give us any reason for this, but it seems that he was definitely in a state of despair or depression.

The scripture continues that he was in “miry clay”. The word “mire” refers to a wet spongy earth – one that a person can sink into and get stuck in. It also refers to a troublesome or intractable situation that a person can find themselves in, meaning a situation that is “not easily cured or manipulated or handled”. So David was in trouble – a very difficult situation that he didn't know how to get out of. He was sinking slowly but surely, but he didn't struggle and wrestle with himself to get out. When you struggle and wrestle in the mud or “sinking sand”, what happens? You end up going in deeper. But he didn't do that.

What did David do? Scripture says that he “waited patiently for the Lord”. Now if you are in some miry clay and sinking, do you think you're going to be calm and patient? How often have we heard “Patience is a virtue”? We know that Galatians 5:22 includes “patience” as one of the 9 fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But it is not always easy to be patient, meaning “to bear pains or trials calmly without complaint; not be hasty or impetuous”. We don't know how long David waited, but we can assume that there was not an instantaneous resolution to his problem. Psalm 37:7 states “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him”. And David did just that.

I believe that David knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Lord would help him and bring him out of this deep despair, but he also knew that he needed to be patient for God's timing.

- Rachel West