Tripped Up and Trapped: God's Way Out of the Pit

03/01/10

Author: Beth Moore

Have you ever been walking along your spiritual journey, minding your own business, when you take a tumble and find yourself in a pit? The quicksand is quickly suffocating you, and you never realized you were in danger. You were minding your own business, going about your day and you got distracted and seduced by a new exhilirating view. Suddenly, you were way off track, clueless as to your next move. 

Yes, you got into this pit yourself, but it certainly wasn’t planned. It wasn’t what you wanted…you didn’t see it coming, but now you’re in a hole. You’d give anything if someone else had thrown you in, because you hate being the one to blame. With eyes squinting and a hand cupped on your brow, you looked up to see the marks of two suspiciously familiar heels leaving twin ruts all the way from the mouth of the pit to the bottom where you’re now standing. You glance at the back of your shoes and, sure enough, they’re caked with mud.

King David hated falling into the pit. He wrote about his folly in Psalm 38:4-6, 9-10, 14-17:

“My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low. All my longing lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes…Those who seek my life set their traps…I have become like a man who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply. I wait for you, O Lord: you will answer, O Lord my God. For I said, ‘Do not let them gloat or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips.’ For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.”

Traps get set. Feet slip. And I hate how the enemy uses the guilt over how you got into a pit to trap you into never getting out….You cannot let him get away with that. Settle in your mind right now that staying in the pit is absolutely unacceptaqble. Lose it as an option. No matter how responsible and guilty you feel for sliding your way in, God wants you out. If you know Jesus Christ personally, you are not stuck. You do have the power to stand up against the enemy.

“It is for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 NIV

When you want out of your pit, you’ve got a golden opportunity to see the grace of God as you’ve never encountered it.

Beth Moore, Looking Up When Life is Looking Down, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, pp. 33, 34, 36. With Julie Barrier.