Psalm 40:2

"He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure."

Good news for pit-dwellers: God wants to get you out. It is not His will that you live there. It may be His will---it definitely is His will---that you taste suffering. But that is not the same as living in a "pit of destruction." The devil comes to "steal, kill, and destroy" (John 10:10). God comes with the opposite goal---to give, enliven, and recreate.

I have learned to tell right away, even in my stomach, which suffering is which; it is a night-and-day difference. I know when I am "carrying around in the body the death of Jesus" (a good thing) versus when I'm suffering from my folly (a bad thing). There is something wonderful about the exquisite pain that is the immediate result of dying to a sinful desire. There is a clearheadedness about it. And you feel, in a strange way, empowered, and brought to a slightly new level of spiritual maturity. God was rooting for you to obey, and when you did, He blessed it immediately.

My cousin Linda gave me the best dieting advice when we were teenagers. She said, "You have to like the feeling of your stomach grumbling." A hungry tummy is not a pleasant sensation in and of itself. But when it is associated in your mind with the desired result of weight loss, suffering itself is transformed into something positive. It is the same with the suffering that accompanies a moment of spiritual victory.

Lots of Christians live in the pit. We may not call it that, but as long as we are not living in the joy and hope of Christ, we are in a pit, because God meant us to have "abundant life" (John 10:10). We must at least admit that there is an embarrassing gap between our book theology and our lived reality.

The best book on pit-dwelling is Beth Moore's Get Out of that Pit. Here are selected tips:

"If we are willing to let truth speak louder than our feelings, and long enough that our feelings finally agree, we can be far more than okay. . . ."

"The Bible teaches that there are no lost causes. No permanent pit-dwellers except those who refuse to leave. . . . You don't have to stay there, even if you've been there your whole life."

"Frequent pit-visiting has a way of turning into pit-living. The earlier we enter the pit or the longer we stay there, the more it feels like home. We start hanging our pictures on the wall, tidying up the place, and making ourselves comfortable. We invite others over to visit us in the pit, and sometimes they feel sufficiently enough at home to unpack their bags."

"At first glance we might be tempted to think a pit of despair is not a pit of sin, but the apostle Paul would beg to differ. . . . Despair is not just sadness. It's not healthy grief. It is hopelessness. We who have Christ possess the very essence---become the very embodiment---of hope (see Romans 15:13). Hopelessness means we've believed the evil one's report over God's. . . . Sometimes we need to give ourselves a good talking to."

"Don't let anybody---particularly someone touting a twisted doctrine of grace---talk you into thinking you can't be liberated from willful sin and blatant rebellion just because he or she hasn't been. I know for a fact that you can be completely set free from every sin that rules over you. . . ."

How do the psalmists get out of their pit? They cry out to God (Psalm 72:12). I have a friend who was in a serious car accident in which her arm was amputated. The trauma nurse on the scene kept her talking so that she wouldn't slip into unconsciousness. Keep talking to God. Keep talking to yourself, and when you talk, talk truth.

To read Andrée Seu's series on Psalm 40, click here.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.