Grandma, Grandma, came the hushed summons from down the hallway, I need a Kleenex. I had already lumbered down that hallway a number of times that evening: the I-need-a-drink trauma, the ever popular I-have-to-go-potty emergency, and this time would involve a much-needed tissue to wipe a drippy nose. I brought him the whole box of tissues to spare myself a second trip, and as I placed that box atop his pillow, I was quickly corrected, No, Grandma, put it in the pit, please. The pit, that bottomless abyss between the edge of his bed and the wall, and although only six to seven inches wide, that pit is home to a myriad of stuffed creatures, action figures, books, juice cups, and just about anything else that turns up missing in the house. I was thinking of that pit today while meditating upon one of the psalms.
Used as the temple hymnbook, the Book of Psalms utilizes at least seven authors to express not only the diversity of human emotions, but also a confidence in the presence of the overriding goodness of God in all situations. David is perhaps the most well-known of the hymn writers, a man with a gift of bearing his heart and soul to his God, laying bare his deepest feelings before Jehovah. In Psalm 9, David is pleading for protection from his enemies, for justice and equity from God, “Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me.” But then for a moment, David reminds himself of the final fate of the wicked, that they will be “rebuked…destroyed,” God will “put out their name for ever and ever,” and they “are sunk down in the pit that they made.” What a dreadful pit, the same pit that will ultimately house Lucifer, the “son of the morning,” for God had previously sealed his doom: “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” At the proper time and in the proper way, God will vindicate Himself and rain judgment down upon an unbelieving creation, He will “bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.”
“O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.” Praise God, I can sing those words with the psalmist, for although I am deserving of a pit of judgment, through simple faith in the blood shed for me by the perfect Lamb of God, my feet are no longer pit-bound, but firmly placed upon a rock. But there are so many souls whose fate is sealed unless we share the good news that Jesus is still seeking and saving the lost. Let’s do our part to keep them out of that dreadful pit.
Psalm 62:7 In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.
Lord, You saved me from the pit. Help me to be faithful to warn others and share the good news of Your salvation.