Psalm 7 (NIV) - Whoever digs a hole falls into the pit he has made

From Psalms

Psalm 7
(A shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush, a Benjamite.)

¹ LORD my God, I take refuge in you;
     save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
² or they will tear me apart like a lion
     and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
³ LORD my God, if I have done this
     and there is guilt on my hands—
⁴if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me
     or without cause have robbed my foe—
⁵ then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
     let him trample my life to the ground
     and make me sleep in the dust.                                   Selah
⁶Arise, LORD, in your anger;
     rise up against the rage of my enemies.
     Awake, my God; decree justice.
⁷Let the assembled peoples gather around you.
     Rule over them on high;
⁸     let the LORD judge the peoples.
Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness,
     according to my integrity, O Most High.
⁹O righteous God,
     who seaches minds and hearts,
bring to an end the violence of the wicked
     and make the righteous secure.
¹⁰My shield is God Most High,
     who saves the upright in heart.
¹¹God is a righteous judge,
     a God who expresses his wrath every day.
¹² If he does not relent,
     he will sharpen his sword;
     he will bend and string his bow.
¹³He has prepared his deadly weapons;
     he makes ready his flaming arrows.
¹⁴Whoever is pregnant with evil
     and conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
¹⁵Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out
     falls into the pit he has made.
¹⁶The trouble he causes recoils on himself;
     his violence comes down on his own head.
¹⁷I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness;
     and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.

Jesus spoke in parables because they make the message easy to understand.  Although there is a lot of good things in this Psalm I would like to focus on the parable, if you will, of the hole described in verse 15 in this Psalm.  The hole of our addiction is incredibly fitting for a lot of reasons.  Addiction is progressive, as time goes on we drink more frequently, we drink more volume - we get deeper into the hole.  As we get deeper into the hole we become more isolated.  As we get deeper into the hole life becomes more dark.  As we dig deeper we become more trapped and it becomes harder to get out.  When we do get out this hole, which has become so big it often "sucks" us back in.  Not until we start filling the hole back in do we actually start to become successful - and that's where the 12 steps begins to come into this parable.

Let me try...so here we are mired in our hole of addiction.  We've tried a few times to get out.  In step 1 we step out of the hole - admit its there, confess to the size and nature of the hole.  In step 2 we realize that we find our way back in without the help of our Higher Power.  Step 3 we begin to fill it back in with the help of our Higher Power.  In Steps 4, 5, 9, 10 we do some pretty heavy (and dirty) lifting to fill the hole back in.  Thankfully we have steps 3, 6, 7, 11 where we are able to lean on and ask God for strength.  Then having filled our hole, knowing that this broken ground is easily dug into again, in Step 12 we search for other addicts who need help filling their addictive holes.

Since we know all to well that this broken ground is easily made into a hole, again, we repeat these 12 steps.  Each time we go through it learning something new.  That, to me, is how the hole is like our addiction and what I learned from Psalm 7.
Thank you for letting me share.