Psalms 40:1-2 "I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry.

Psalms 40:1-2 "I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings."
I heard a story once about a farmer who had a horse who had become too old and decrepid to be of much help with the daily chores. Many of the farmer's friends told him that he should just shoot the horse and put him out of his misery...but the farmer loved the horse and felt like there were still many good days in the horse's future, even though he couldn't do much. One day the farmer was walking from the barn out to the field, where there happened to be an old dried up well which was very deep. The horse was following the farmer, and because he was nearly blind by now, the horse completely missed seeing the well and fell in. The farmer heard a commotion behind him and turned to see that the horse was gone. He heard the shrieks and whinnying of the horse..now 20 feet beneath him in the very dark and dank well. The farmer panicked and wasn't quite sure what to do. He tried to calm the horse down by calling down to him, but that only increased the loud shrill cries of the terrified animal. The farmer ran next door to get one of his neighbors. Soon word spread around the small community about the situation with the farmer's horse. People came from all over to see what they could do to help him out. They thought about trying to pull the horse up out of the hole somehow with pulleys and ropes, but lacking all of the right equipment, they gave up on the idea. After several hours of one failed idea after another, the farmer realized that the horse had stopped shrieking. There was no more noise coming from the bottom of the well. The farmer couldn't even allow himself to look down into the hole. He just grabbed his shovel and begin to pour shovel after shovel of dirt into the large deep shaft. He quickly grew more upset and angry with himself, that he had not filled this hole years ago. Tears ran down his cheeks as he thought of all the good years that he'd had with this wonderful animal. He thought of all that he and the horse had accomplished on the farm over the years, and he was very thankful..but very sad that this was how the horse's life would come to an end. He thought about his own life, and wondered about the future. With every shovel full of dirt, he pondered his own future, and thought about what might lie ahead.
Suddenly, a strange thing happened..the farmer saw something out of the corner of his eye..he knew that he had shoveled enough dirt by now that the hole should be nearly full..he'd been working for hours, and darkness was beginning to cover his entire farm...but there it was..what was it that he was seeing? It was something moving..As he continued to put shovel after shovel of dirt into the rapidly filling hole, he realized something..every time he had thrown in a shovel full of dirt, the horse would shake off the dirt, and then step up on top of it. He did this time after time, until he was now nearly at the top. He hadn't died at all! He had literally used every shovel full of dirt as a ladder..to step up and stand on, until the next spade of dirt came. The farmer was overjoyed as the horse finally stepped up out of the hole and was completely whole...not even a broken bone! Many years later, the farmer and the horse continued to work the farm together.. even though they had both slowed down a great deal and couldn't do a lot of physical labor, and the horse was nearly blind..the farmer never forgot the experience with the well that day many years ago. It had actually been strangely invigorating for the him, and gave him a renewed sense of purpose in his life. The experience had motivated him beyond his own thinking, and he realized that God still held him..and always had.
I love this story. I get encouraged by it. I guess for me there are several morals to the story. The first one is that I guess no matter what life throws at us, we have a choice..we can let ourselves be buried by many of life's problems..or we can ask God to use the things that are coming at us, to build us up, to make us stronger, to help us to be able to stand strong in adversity, to walk with our heads held high, to trust God in every situation, and to realize that no matter what pit we are in, we have a God who is bigger than anything we go through. His arm is not short. He can reach down into any situation and help us. He can reach down into any pit and pull us out.
The second thing is that as long as we draw breath, God has purpose for us. Our purpose may change over the years but God has a plan for you beloved....and through all of our times of need, difficulty and trials, there is never a time that we cannot hope in God. There is never a time that we should believe that He is done with us. Even when our situation appears to be impossible, we continue to hope in God. That hope will not be in vain.
There are probably many morals to this story..probably some of you could come up with a few of your own. I hope that God will speak to every one of you through it and that you will be encouraged the next time that something unexpected happens in your life. Are you today being squeezed from all sides? Do not give up! Remember as you go through your weekend that "Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." Your God is with you. He would never leave you to face things on your own. May He richly bless you.