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. – Psalm 40:2
When I read today’s focus verse, it reminded me of an adventure from a family vacation trip not long ago. We were driving along a deserted gravel road on the eastern slopes of the California Sierras. Discovering we had gone past the point we were looking for, I pulled sharply off the road into the sage brush in order to turn around. Before I knew it we were stuck in the sand—all four wheels of our pickup. Then I did the worst possible thing: I gunned my engine. The effect of this, of course, was to mire the truck even deeper in the sand. Next I did what l should have done in the first place: I put the vehicle into 4-wheel-drive and tried to creep out. Unfortunately, by then we were so deeply rutted that even this did not work.
Our succeeding efforts included jacking up the truck, one wheel at a time, and placing items under the wheels to obtain better traction. Being fresh out of boards, metal netting, or tire chains, we used what was at hand. The best things we had were rocks and pieces of sage brush. After a lot of digging and jacking up of the wheels—and some praying as well—we finally got safely back on the gravel road.
As I thought of that little adventure, I could see great parallels between it and our key verse. How many people who are lost in sin find themselves more deeply involved in harmful practices than they had intended. They may try to pull themselves out, but so often this does not work. It reminds me of the song by Harold McWhorter, the chorus of which tells us:
Sin will take you farther than you wanna go,
Slowly but wholly taking control.
Sin will leave you longer than you wanna stay,
Sin will cost you far more than you wanna pay. [i]
As people try to extricate themselves from their problems by their own efforts, they instead find themselves more deeply involved.
It is only when one faces up to the fact that he is helplessly stuck in sin that there is hope. As the sinner turns to God in true repentance, God can lift him out of the miry clay and set his feet upon the Solid Rock. Oh, the rejoicing when a person realizes that he has been set free from the bondage in which he had been stuck! And not only that, but He will then establish our goings. He gives a life of joy and victory! Praise the living God!
[i] Harold McWhorter, “Sin Will Take You Farther,” The Very Best of Harold McWhorter (1975-1987), Lost Gold Records, 2008.