Out of the Pit and Onto Rock

David describes a rescue in slow motion. I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 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. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

The waiting comes first, and David does not pretend it was quick. He waited, and the pit he waited in is described as miry bog, the kind of ground that gives you nothing to push against, where every effort to climb out just sinks you deeper. Any man who has tried to fight his way free of a besetting sin by sheer effort knows that mud.

What changes David's footing is not that he finally found a foothold in the bog. There isn't one. It is that God drew him up and set him on rock, ground that was not there before and that David did not make. The security of his steps is a gift, not an achievement.

And then the new song. David does not sing his way out; he is drawn out, and the song comes after, as the natural sound of a man standing on something solid at last. If you are still in the mud, keep crying out. The rock is God's to give, and he gives it.

Lord, I have exhausted myself in the bog. Draw me up and set me on ground I did not make. When you do, put a new song in my mouth, and let others hear it.