Discover the Book - Feb. 29, 2012

Finding Christ In the Pits

Today, if you feel far from God—check these four areas of your life: what areas defeat you, what sins capture you, what habits control you, and what circumstances drive you?

Chances are that one or more of these areas has buried you in a pit, and you are so deep that you no longer can hear the voice of God speaking to your heart through His Spirit, and from His Word.

Drilling Through Pits

What are the pits David was talking about? There are four possibilities drawn from various eras of David’s life. Remember, David wrote this after the events. He is looking back with an inspired view of life. God’s Spirit within him opened his mind and guided his words.

Everything in this Psalm is exactly what the Spirit of God wanted him to say about these times in the pits. Here are the various pits in David’s life that God had to dig out, drill through and remove lots of debris--for David to stay in touch with God.   

       The pit of defeat.This could be Saul in David’s mind. It was so hard. Saul could never be pleased no matter how hard David tried; or maybe it was Saul’s bitter hatred and jealousy at David’s success that defeated David; or even the bitter agony and defeat of David’s own son Absalom’s betrayal and attempt to destroy his father left David is despair.

What ever pulled David into the pit of defeat—God could rescue him. That is what David confesses in Psalm 40:1“I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry.”  After the Lord dug through those layers of defeat, David could again hear His voice and feel His presence. 

       The pit of sin. This could be on David’s mind as he remembered Bathsheba. Remember how David decided to stay home while he as King was supposed to be leading the army. While enjoying his palace in Jerusalem he looked down into the courtyard of a nearby house where the grand- daughter of his aged counselor Ahithophel the Gilonite (II Samuel 15:12) lived with her husband the great warrior of King David, Uriah the Hittite. David had noticed her beauty at other occasions but this evening seeing her unclothed drew him to allow his lusts to plunge him into sin. The rest is so sadly known from 2^nd Samuel 11.

Maybe you are caught in a similar sin. Maybe one sin has led you to another and you are hopelessly mired in the pit of sin. That is the nature of sin. Sin is a powerful monster that entraps all who play with it. While captivated by sin there is no end to what you may do. If you are in the pit of sin there is help available—God is in the business of rescuing us from sin.

Flee to Him, cry to Him from your pit and let Him pull you out and put your feet on the Rock. But that will only happen when you repent by seeing that sin is horrible like David says, and that it mires us down like David describes. And that is exactly what David confesses in Psalm 40:2“He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.”  After the Lord dug through those layers of sin, David could again hear His voice and feel His presence.

To continue this message including the other two possible pits in David’s life please click here.