More Pit Places

[The LORD] redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.

Psalm 103:4, NIV

For more than thirty years, my parents lived in Gaffney, South Carolina. My dad told me that he wanted us to grow up in a small town so we would know the store owners and doctors, the people who served us and whom we served in our community. Besides being home to the beloved “Jesus Saves Shoe Store,” as we called it, their small town is known for a big water tower painted to look like a mouthwatering giant peach. Every time they traveled “north” to Virginia for a visit, they’d be sure to load up the car with Gaffney peaches if they were in season. I loved to eat those peaches right down to the pit, and I still miss my daddy peeling them for me.

There’s that word pit again. I mentioned it on September 16. We looked it up then and discovered that it could mean a literal hole, the actual place of hell, and an emotional state as well. When I hear the word, I think of peach pits, armpits, and the saying, “I’m in the pits,” which always sounded unladylike to me.

Psalm 103 is a psalm of praise that David wrote later in life. Looking back, he certainly could have given many examples when he was trapped in a pit of his own making. In this verse, he reminds us that the Lord has redeemed us from the serious pit of spending eternity separated from Him.

Now and for all eternity, we praise God for His great love and compassion—for forgiving our sins and for healing all our diseases and hurts one day. We also praise Him because He “satisfies [our] desires with good things so that [our] youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (verse 5, NIV). David unreservedly worshiped the Lord with his words. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his life was in the hands of a loving God. Instead of being in the pits about his aging body and imminent death, he praised God for saving him from the pit of destruction. Do you have the same certainty?

Only God can redeem our lives from the pit places. Praise Him for His eternal place in our hearts!