Down at the Bottom

David is my guy.  I love David. David who wrote the Psalms that is. My amazing-handsome-alive-on-the-earth-guy is named Daniel. So not him.

Bible David I love because he gets me.

You know what I notice about the Psalms?

David's book is not “10 Steps to Success” or “Climbing Your Ladder to Happiness”.

David doesn’t give me a recipe for faith.  He gives himself.  All of himself.  And I love him for it.  His highs, his lows, his worst transgressions; he writes them all.  He isn’t looking to instruct us; he just pours out himself, his heart, and his faith.

I have always thought if there was one person in the bible I most relate to, it would be David.

As much as I love reading the Psalms of David, as much as his words always seem to be a salve for whatever I am feeling, I find myself putting down his book and looking around for other books written by people selling ladders. 

What do I mean by people selling ladders?  You know…something you would use to climb out of a pit. I think people sell that to you, and to me.

Year after year I have let people sell me their ladders.  I want to climb out of the pit I am in, so I keep looking for ladders.  One is too weak.  One is too short.  One is completely wrong; the ladder that was so clearly not made for me that I can’t even fit on it.  One works really well for a while, but then I fall off it and I hear someone laughing, “Ha ha ha.  You fell again.  Never going to make it to the top, are you?  Might as well just stay down there in that pit. Why keep climbing?  Aren’t you tired?  Just stay in the bottom.  Someone might come to give you a hot air balloon ride out of there really soon.  It will be easy with no work required.  Just stay down there and they will come.”

I am tempted to wait for the balloon ride.  But I know I must climb.  And so I say a chant to encourage myself and I climb again. 

The truth is, I actually want to climb the ladder.  I want to achieve my spirituality just like I have achieved all the other things in my life.  I have resilience.  I can climb this.  I will find the ladder that gets me to the top of this pit.  I will climb out.  I can do this.  I believe it. I want this. I want to get out the pit once and for all and put my arms high up in the air and shout, “THE TOP!!  I made it Lord!”

I want to achieve. Even my faith.

I love to have step by step instructions.  I love someone going ahead of me and figuring it out and then leading. And I love the idea of turning around to the person behind me and acting like I have it all figured out.

But then there are the pit days, like Monday.  I realize I am in the shadows again. I have not made it out of the pit like I imagined I did.  I am in the bottom again.  The cold.  The dark.  The shadows surround me.  I have no instructions to give.  No help to offer.

I hear it again; I am a fake.  I am a fraud.  I cannot find the ladder that is the answer.

Today it hits me: NO MORE LADDERS.

I hear my friend words she prayed over me ring out like a bell of truth.

"Faith is not something we complete…not a list to be done… it is a journey."

Suddenly it is like a fog lifts.

I am not in a pit.  The enemy has lied to me all this time.  We are not looking for ascending, or completion, or checking off boxes….we are on a journey. In my experience that is what Satan does, takes something that is so close to the truth and then distorts it, so we think it is truth. 

You see, yes, I am in the shadows. That is what Satan has told me for years. And he is right. I am indeed in the cold.  I am in the dark. 

BUT...it is easy to confuse a pit with a valley, isn’t it? 

A VALLEY. 

Today I wonder if all this time I have been looking for a ladder to climb out of a pit that I am not even in. 

I am not in a pit; I am in a valley of darkness.  The valley feels deep and dark. It is cold and shadowy down here.  In fact, I hate it here.  But it is not a pit to climb out of, to ascend out of ….but a path to keep walking. 

I am on a journey.

What does that mean? It means I just need to follow a map or a leader or a shepherd or a trail guide...and keep walking forward.

For years I bought every ladder sold, and climbing each and every one, wondering why I was still down in the pit.  The last two years I stopped buying more ladders and I started reading the Psalms.   Then I read the gospels.  And in both I saw not stories of pits, but of paths.

All this time I have been so exhausted climbing ladders when all I had to do was listen the guide, who knew the way out of the valley.  I just had to walk forward.  It wasn’t a pit I was in.  It was a valley.

I am on a path.  All I needed to do was listen to the guide and keep walking.

Let me tell you a little about the guide I met. He is no ladder seller. He doesn’t just sell you the ladder and then leave. 

This guide I met?  He is the BEST. He is with you on the journey.  Like any good guide or trainer, he watches your breath rise and fall.  He sees what weight you struggle under, he knows your strength and how much you can carry.  And it isn’t like he is one of those fitness instructors who fill up stadiums and try to yell to everyone the same instructions.  He isn’t on a video where he gives the same answer to the masses.  He is a personal trainer.  A personal guide.  He watches YOU so intimately.  He knows that giving everyone the exact same instructions might strengthen one and then crush the other. He doesn’t give you the same instructions as he gives Muscle Joe over there who goes to the gym every day.  No. No good trainer would do that.  He gives you the right hand-holds and foot-holds for your ability.  The weights that will strengthen you, but not kill you. Like any good trainer he will push you.  Because he knows you have to tear muscle to build it, and he knows you will have to build some endurance and muscle for the journey ahead.  But he knows what Muscle Joe can handle, those huge rocky boulders, and he know that you need the steady climb with some grass to stop and rest on.  And the best part?  If you really get exhausted and he knows you don’t have what it takes?  He carries you. 

This is my guide.  This is my trainer.  I always thought his book seemed to be a one size fits all instruction manual.  But when I got to know him I saw that indeed he is a personal trainer, a personal coach, a personal guide. 

He is the BEST trainer, coach, guide, counselor, and friend I have ever had.