Escape Clause

“then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I beseech You, save my life!”” Psalm 116:4

Save – How was the memory trip to “hell on earth” (yesterday)?  A close encounter with hell turns life into an unbearable sickness.  That’s when David cries out, “Lord, save me!”  David gives us the only escape clause from our nightmares.  But do you know what’s so amazing about this?  We try everything else first.  Why do we do that?  Because we think that hell is still under our control.

What makes life hell?  There may not be just one answer.  All kinds of circumstances and decisions can bring us into sheol‘s tractor beam.  But one thing is usually common to every experience.  Even in the midst of the nightmare, we still think that escape is to be found in something we can do.  The irony is that this kind of thinking probably got us into the mess in the first place.  The assumption of self-control is really the drug of choice when it comes to a gate pass to hell.  As long as we think we can handle it, we are still in a drug-induced psychosis.  No amount of self-anything will rescue us from the self-made prison chambers of our personal sheol.

I’m quite sure that David knew a lot about hell on earth.  I share some of his experiences and I know the grief and agony first-hand.  If I pay attention, David can also point me to the way out.  His cry can be mine.  But I have to give up entirely the idea that my effort has anything to do with it.  “Lord, you save me!”  I’m passive in this action.  I put all my eggs in one basket.  No backup plan.  No extra safety belt.  “Lord, if you don’t save me, sheol will be my life.”  We’re right back to Job, aren’t we?  “Even if God kills me, even if He leaves me in sheol, I have only one plan:  I wait and hope for Him.”

This is visceral, emotional theology.  It just might be the only kind of theology that really matters.  Malat, the Hebrew verb for “escape”, is as raw as it gets.  “Lord, I’m down for the count.  I’m fatally wounded.  Lord, I’m going to die right here unless You come to me.”  And then there’s the moment of spiritual truth.  “Lord, I’m waiting for You, even if it means I bleed to death.”

The only theology that matters is the theology that waits.  God is never in a panic.  Panic is theological theft.  It robs God of His sovereignty.  David and Job are consistent.  When I am living in hell on earth, God is my only escape clause.  But there isn’t any panic button with Him.  There is only “I wait”.  Action is not the escape clause solution.

Say it out loud.  “Yes, Lord, I’ll wait.”  Just think about that.