Hole

When I look back in time, I think that I’ve always had an obsession with holes. Huh? No, you heard me correctly, I think I’ve liked holes for a long time. I like digging them. I like climbing into them. When I was a kid, I can remember going to the beach with my family and digging a whole that was four or five feet deep. When I was finished digging the hole, I climbed in and enjoyed the new perspective on the beach.

When I was in junior high, my brother and two of my friends dug a hole in their front yard. I’m not kidding you when I tell you that it was about 7 feet deep, 7 feet wide, and 7 feet long. We spent all day digging this hole. It was fun to work together and dream about how we would deck out our new fort.

Recently, I’ve been listening to a song that my little brother wrote and performed years ago called “Taking You Back”. The chorus of the song goes something like this:

“I’m taking you back,
’cause I don’t want to see you
dig a hole that gets deeper
that you cannot escape from…”

Sometimes, holes can be a bad thing. Obviously, sink holes are bad. Holes in the floor or walls are bad. How about holes or places we put ourselves into that are difficult to get out of on our own? Perhaps, it’s insurmountable debt. Maybe, it’s a bad behavior that has become a habit or pattern. Or maybe it’s a relationship that just seems to be beyond repair – at least when put to our own efforts. These are the holes that I hate.

I hate these holes for the obvious feeling of despair that seems to happen. I also hate them because if I really think about it, I realize that I can’t get out of them by myself, I have to ask for help.

Many times we can escape these “holes” with the help of a close friend. Do you have close friends in your life who won’t let you “dig a hole that gets deeper?” Thank God for friends like these. Sometimes though, I think the only way we’re really going to make it out of these “holes” is to rely on God whose love for us is deeper and wider than any hole that we could find ourselves in. Who’s got your back today? Who’s there to get you out of your hole?”

Until the next post…