Tag Archives: Life Line

Chapter-a-Day

No Pit So Deep

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Bradley Olin via Flickr
Bradley Olin via Flickr

But I called on your name, Lord,
    from deep within the pit.
Lamentations 3:55 (NLT)

The man stood before me, tears streaming down his cheeks, as I explained to him a simple truth. Salvation was just a heart’s prayer a way. Call out to God. Open your heart. Ask Him in. Then it came. The pushback of shame I’ve heard many times:

“But you don’t understand the things I’ve done. If you knew where I’ve been. The terrible things… the horrible… the awful….”

I’ve discovered along my journey that when you live for any time in a pit, darkness has a tendency to attach itself to your soul. You begin absorbing the lies of darkness:

  • You are no good
  • What you’ve done in the darkness permanently marks you
  • You don’t deserve forgiveness
  • God doesn’t want you; No one wants you
  • You deserve this pit in which you find yourself
  • There is no way out.

The most amazing thing about Jeremiah’s Lamentation is the 180 turnabout he makes in today’s chapter. After two and a half chapters of wailing, weeping, and woe, Jeremiah dares to look up from his pit and see the Light. Amidst the destruction, depression and carnage Jeremiah reaches out to the life line of God’s love, compassion and faithfulness.

I can’t think of a more apt contemporary parallel to the type of suffering Jeremiah experienced than the victims of Nazi death camps in World War II. This morning I was reminded of the words of Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who was sent to the camps with her family for hiding Jews in The Hiding Place they’d made in their home. Her family all died in the concentration camps. Corrie was freed by a clerical error. Later in life she continuously shared this message from her own personal Lamentations:

“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.”

After a litany of shame filled confessions out of the darkness of the spiritual pit he lived in, the man I mentioned at the beginning of my post looked up and saw a glimpse of light. He opened his heart. He took a step of faith. He uttered a simple prayer. His life changed forever.

Yours can too.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Deuteronomy 13

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From USCG caption: Keeper Benjamin Cameron of ...
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You are to follow only God, your God, hold him in deep reverence, keep his commandments, listen obediently to what he says, serve him—hold on to him for dear life! Deuteronomy 13:4 (MSG)

There are days in which life itself doesn’t make much sense. There are days when I read God’s Message and I have more questions than answers. There are days when everything feels adrift. I love that even in the midst of these days, God throws me a life-line like the fourth verse of today’s chapter.

Follow. Press on.
Stay obedient. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Listen. Open both your ears and your heart.
And whatever you do, hold on for dear life!

If there’s anything that 16,565 days on the journey have taught me, it’s to cling to God and press on through days like this.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 38

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God is my belayer. It seems it was good for me to go through all those troubles. Throughout them all you held tight to my lifeline. You never let me tumble over the edge into nothing. Isaiah 38:17 (MSG)

I have, on a handful of occasions, gone rock climbing. I went through very basic classes to learn safety and had the experience of working my way up a few simple rock faces. I enjoy it, though sIowa does not provide a plethora of rock climbing opportunities, so I haven't actively pursued it.

Even on a man-made climbing wall, however, you can find yourself high in the air. Your muscles ache and begin to spasm from the unique tension and demand that climbing puts on them. It would be easy to fall. That's why you should always be tied to a belayer who can ensure that, in the event of a fall, you will not fall far.

We all see our share of troubles in this life. It is a part of the journey. We live in a broken world with other broken people and we are bound to experience the effect of it. Sometimes life feels like a rough climb up a sheer face of nothing but troubling obstacles. But when God is our belayer we can trust that  He holds the life-line and will not let us fall to our death. We may lose our grip and slip down the face of the cliff, but God holds tight so that we can approach the rock face once more, find our grip and begin the ascent again.

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