Saturday, July 18th "climbing out of hell"

The first psalm speaks of Sheol. In the Old Testament, Sheol is equivalent to our concept of hell today. David felt like his life was in hell. He was carrying around his unconfessed and unconfronted sin; it was weighing him down, so down, in fact, he felt it was taking him to the deepest, darkest place where only misery is there to great you. I can identify with that feeling of Sheol. It is hard to confront sin in your life because it is so frustrating. If I can't live perfectly, I'd like to ignore the bad so I can feel good about myself. Sometimes I'm not quite ready to give up my sin yet. The next two psalms speak of what that feels like, holding onto sin. It is hell and nothing short of it. The rest of the readings compare Paul teaching Christ, who forgives sins and brings people out of Sheol, to Judas, who was sorrowful but not repentant (it appears). He never returned to Christ and sought fellowship again. Man, that is how I deal with sin sometimes. I get so angry at myself that I refuse comfort from Christ. I throw away the price of my betrayal of Christ, go to a field, and kill myself. I cut myself off from family, friends, and my God because I feel I can't face them. I was in Sheol with no way out. I remember praying sometimes, asking God to take my life if I ever begin to do more harm to his kingdom than good. If I become a liability, then I would rather be taken to the Lord now to mitigate these damages. I realize that the prayer was a self-pity prayer. It seems that most of the prayers in psalms reflect a different tone: Don't grind me to dust for the dust cannot praise your name; for your name's sake, restore to me the joy of my salvation. That is a heart more focused on God than self. Anyway, I loved the progression of scriptures this morning. I know my rant was random, but that is what mood I'm in today.