Psalm 40:1-5
Stuck in the Mud

I waited patiently for the LORD;
      he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the desolate pit,
      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.
Many will see and fear,
      and put their trust in the LORD.

Happy are those who make
      the LORD their trust,
who do not turn to the proud,
      to those who go astray after false gods.
You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
      your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
      none can compare with you.
Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
      they would be more than can be counted.

New Revised Standard Version

As you read this psalm, think of all the tight spots that David faced in his life. He had battled wild animals when tending sheep as Jesse's youngest boy. He had fought and killed Goliath, the giant of the Philistines, with a slingshot and river stones. King Saul had tried to kill him, and repeatedly David escaped Saul's armies. He had led the armies of Israel against larger foes and won.

But when David cried out to God in this psalm, he was stuck in the filthy mud, unable to free himself, and with no way to get out. His foe was nothing dramatic--no sharp teeth, no chariots, no swords or spears--just sticky, plentiful, deep mud.

We don't know what it was that David metaphorically called a "miry bog," but there are several possibilities that all work well. Most scholars believe his sins had caught up with him, possibly still concerning his ill-gotten wife Bathsheba. Other scholars believe that David was at the end of his rope in frustrations and disappointments--he might have been "burned out." Still others speculate about depression. It doesn't matter, because David wrote this psalm about anything in our life that brings us down, holds us back, and takes away our hope.

Look what God did! When we give up fighting the mud ourselves, and give the problem over to God, God kneels down beside us to help us out. From slippery, sticky, bottomless swamps, God brushes us off and sets us back on solid ground. God doesn't just fix the problem, God makes us better than new with a new song on our lips, so that we can praise God with enthusiasm for our rescue. And the blessings! David's psalm tells us that blessings multiply, blossom, and defy our ability to count them, when we open ourselves in obedience and humility to God.

We are all in some sort of "miry bog" from time to time, and we so often find our on ways of sloshing our way back to more solid ground so we can continue trudging on. Wouldn't it be so much better for us to trust God with our miry bogs instead?