I met recently with a male friend, I consider a “soul mate.”  He is someone with whom I can to talk about what is going on in my soul.  I have committed to allow him to know me for who I am – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I want to be more of an honest man, integrating my head and heart. 

After our meeting together, I felt led to write a blog on my sharing with my friend.  I began by telling him how I had found myself, once again, in the pit.  As he listened to my story, he was helping my climb out, so I could walk in the light.  

Every man has this experience every now and then.  Each has his own unique pit.  The Psalmist knew what the pit was like.  Here are some descriptions of his actual experience. “Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow over me or the pit close its mouth over me” (Ps 69:15). This feels like a man either in the pit or aware that he is sinking.  

In Ps. 143:7 the palmist descriptions himself actually sinking. “Answer me quickly, O Lord; my spirit fails.  Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit.”  This is definitely a cry for help.

The Psalmist in Psalm 103:4 expresses thanks for God’s help in getting out of the pit.  “…..who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” 

Reading and meditating on Ps. 40:2, I find real help  when I feel myself in the pit.  “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” Down in the pit it is slimy; God places us on solid ground.

In Psalm 30 the Psalmist expresses, “I will exalt you, O Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths.”  (Psalm 30:1). He goes on to testify, “O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit” (v. 3).  He questions his experience of being in the pit.  “What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit?  Will the dust praise you?  Will it proclaim your faithfulness? (v. 9).

Psalm 88 is a very dark Psalm, as it expressed a desperate cry for help.  The Psalmist prays, “For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.  I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.”

For many years I avoided talking about the times I felt in the pit.  It was not continues, but circumstances would cause me to fall into a pit time and again.  My confession, which is not easy to make, is that I so often felt like a little boy, feeling sorry for myself.  Feeling full of self-pity and self-loathing caused me to be angry with myself for failing to be at the “top of my spiritual game.” 

My testimony is that with my friend Bruce, I could  get beyond my shame, acknowledge freely my self-centeredness, while wanting to be back on the surface out of the “miry clay.”  A true friend will not look down into the pit to either scold  or exhort you to get out.  He might come down into the pit, and encourage you  But most of all he will listen, acknowledge your condition in the pit, and point  you to Jesus, while saying “Al, cry out for mercy and grace.”  God will pull me out.