Sometimes we want to begin again but it seems too hard to climb out of the pit we are trapped within. Here is a story of one goat’s struggles to escape his pit.

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Once upon a time on a hill overlooking a city sat a gorgeous little sheep who had a heart of gold. One day as she was walking, she heard muffled cries coming from nearby. 

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“Help me, help me please,” shouted a little goat, caught and trapped at the bottom of a very large pit.

 

“Oh my,” she exclaimed, “however did you get in there and however are we going to release you and set you free?” 

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The goat told her a long story of all that had led up to the point where he had fallen into the deep pit but which he was unable to escape from on his own. He had tried for many hours and even days to find a way to escape. 

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“We need to get you out,” exclaimed the sheep. 

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The goat replied, “Please don't leave me, for how do I know you will ever find your way back here with help? I know you probably can't release me on your own, but I'm scared to once more be lonely and on my own. As long as I have you, I have hope.”

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The sheep looked at the situation for a long while. She walked again and again around the large pit, but could see no means of escape, for the pit was too deep and narrow in some places and too wide in others. She could see that the goat had tried to scramble up the sides, but nearly everywhere the walls were too steep. What made it worse was that she could now see that the goat had broken one of his feet for it was at a funny angle and he was hobbling badly on only three legs.

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“I must go and get you help,” the sheep replied. “I know you are afraid that I won't return and that you might die on your own, but I do not have the strength or wisdom to free you on my own. I'm just a little sheep and I am not strong enough to lift or carry you more than a few inches. In order to get you out, we need a crane of some sort so I must leave in order to get you help.”

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However, at that precise moment a man came along and drew near to the sheep who explained the conundrum to him and introduced him to the goat below. 

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“Thank God!” the goat exclaimed. “Now there are two of you and so I must be able to escape. Can you help me please, for I have fallen into this huge pit and try as I might, I can't escape?” 

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The man sat on the edge of the pit with his legs dangling over the sides and he looked with great compassion on the poor, tired, hungry and very broken goat. 

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“I will help you I promise, but I'm going to ask you too to help yourself. I can see how scared and fretful you are and that you have badly damaged one of your legs. However, I'm not going to risk my life and the life of this sheep by crawling down to you, for all three of us might become trapped and that won't help you or anyone. However, I promise you that I can see a way out of here, but you are going to have to trust me each and every step of the way. Do you understand?”

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“I don't understand why you can't throw down an escape ladder to me so that I can climb out on it. That way you won't get trapped in here with me, but at least then I know it's been secured above and so can take my weight. I can walk up the ladder step by step, stopping when I'm tired, but knowing I’m higher and nearer to escaping with each step I take.” 

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“That is exactly what I'm going to do with you and for you. I have with me a very special stepladder made of the strongest rope ever invented and I promise you that even if you were a two-ton elephant, it would still be able to hold your weight. On this ladder are twelve steps, I guess you could call them the twelve steps to freedom. Therefore, in order to get out, you need to climb all twelve of them and I promise you that should you agree to do so, before you know it you will have begun the great climb and eventually be out and free.”

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“But I don't understand why, if I stand on the bottom step, you and the sheep can’t pull me out by pulling up the ladder. I'm only a small and light little goat and you will quite easily be able to help me out and get me free. Isn’t that so much easier than me having to battle through so much pain and effort when ultimately we achieve the same outcome-me free and out of this pit?” 

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The man thought for a long time and began to tell him a story. In it he told him how each day people all over the world were falling into pits of their own making. At night time, little scurrying animals go out and dig pits according to what each person had done in that day. If they have had a good day, none of the pit gets enlarged. However, if they have had a bad day, the little creatures are very busy indeed, digging and burrowing deeper and deeper. He explained to him that he could indeed free him today. However, if he continued to do things that released the little scurrying animals to dig pits into which he would continue to fall again and again, then tomorrow he would be trapped in another pit and would again need the help of others to release him. Instead, he told him that although his method of escaping the pit would indeed take longer, with every step taken, he would learn how to never again fall into pits made through his own making. 

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The sheep sat quietly taking everything in and wanting to be some practical and physical help to the goat. However, she could sense that whoever this man was, he had all the answers within that rope ladder and there was nothing she could do now which would help in any greater way.

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“Are you willing to trust me to lead you out of this pit and in doing so, ensure that you won't again fall into new pits?” the man asked.

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“I don't know,” said the goat. “It all sounds like a lot of hard work and in many ways, although I recognise that I keep falling into pits, I can't be bothered to try and climb out on my own when I'm in pain from my broken foot and you could so easily free me.” 

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“Then I must leave you in the pit,” the man replied and walked away. 

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“Oy you, come back, you can't just leave me here!!!” 

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“But I can,” the man replied, walking back and peering in once again. “Why should I put my life at risk and the life of this sheep who is helping me, if you can't be bothered to help yourself in any way? Why must we, who are not in the pit with you, stop our lives, pull you out and save you, only to see you fall into another pit in a few days’ time, again needing new people or sheep to help you out one more time?

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It would be different if this pit had been made by others alone. But this pit exists because of decisions you make each and every day about how you will choose to live your life and react to situations and people. Until you begin to make new and life affirming choices, you will continue to allow those little scurrying animals to make pit after pit into which you will fall.

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I am offering you a way out that might take far longer to climb out of than pulling you out, but it will forever transform your life and isn’t that ultimately what you desire? I promise you that I won't just tinker with your life, I will make it altogether new, fresh and alive and never again will you ever desire to return to your old habits and lifestyle. 

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However, in order for that to happen, you must do your part. You must know at the end of this time that it was you who made the steps, you that climbed the ladder, you and you alone that climbed out on your own. We will stay with you, encourage and support you in any way we can, but we will not go down into your pit with you. This is your pit and you are stuck in it. You must decide whether you want to be forever free of this pit and all that holds you in it, or whether you will send us on our way and hope someone kinder and not so challenging and demanding will come along and pull you out. That might well happen, but I promise you that unless you begin to do all you can to aid your escape, no sooner will you have crawled out of one hole than you will fall into the next one. 

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Therefore, my question to you must be, do you want to escape this lifestyle of falling into and being trapped in pit after pit? Or are you content to stay there or escape only to fall into another one? That must be the first step you take. Do you want to do all that only you alone can do to help yourself escape and put your first foot on the ladder? 

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If you are not prepared to help yourself, why then must others help you? I will invest my money, time and effort in you because I can see in you someone beautiful and wonderful that at the moment has been smothered and covered over by the dirt in that pit. However, you must show me that my belief and trust in you is returned by yourself. If you can't believe and trust in yourself to break free from this pit, then you are going to struggle later on.

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Every time I tell you that you are special and precious and full of endless possibilities and beauty, you too must encourage these truths within yourself. If you treat yourself as if you were a worthless piece of rubbish, then you can't be surprised if others too treat you in such a way. However, each time you do or say something which affirms your worth and extraordinary beauty, then you will begin to grow in believing words which at the moment might not have the ring of truth that one day they will have.

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So, before we can go further, I need your commitment that you will do all in your power to try and escape this pit. With that commitment, I will stay with you for however long it might take, even if some days you slip back down the ladder. I will not give you an easy way out, for that way will never lead to your being free to be all you were created to be.

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So, the first step on this ladder I will now lower is commitment to change, commitment to try new ways and approaches, commitment to move forwards and not backwards, commitment to improving your own lifestyle and choices, commitment to those who will come alongside you and try and encourage and inspire you in some way to want more and be more.

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This is a walk in which I will not carry you, for you are no longer a baby but a mature adult goat. I know you're tired and weary and that everything within you wants to be carried, but I will not treat you as an invalid or as a baby. I will only treat you as a great and wonderful goat, who was made to walk and climb in the high pastures. That is where I want you to end up. However, you will never do so until you begin to make this journey, day by day, week by week and month by month on your own by using every one of your feet, yes even the broken one. 

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I will walk alongside you and promise never to leave you or forsake you. I will rest when we need to rest and I will guide you when you feel lost or don't know which way to go. I will share with you my strength when you need it and also my wisdom and perspective when we meet situations which may seem to overwhelm or confuse you.

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However, you must do your part. For this is your journey, your story, your life and we must once more get you to a place where not only are you free from the pits that claim and hold you, but also where you choose the type of journey you next want to embark on and choose destinations which reflect all you will grow to desire and hope for from your own very special and very precious life.

I am throwing down the gauntlet to you now. If you can commit to helping improve your own life, then step onto that first step of the ladder. If you can't, then I won't walk away but neither will I come down and offer you any other way out. For what I offer you is a way to not only escape this pit but also the door through which a whole new and wonderful world can be yours, if you are but brave and courageous enough to make this first step.” 

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With that the man and the sheep waited for what seemed hours. The goat hobbled back and forth, at times cross and frustrated that they were refusing to rescue him without any effort on his part and sometimes howling and pleading for an easy way out. However, the more he shouted, screamed, pleaded, bargained, blamed and threw hissy fits, the more he saw that the man remained unmoved and unchanged.

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Finally, he accepted that this might be the only offer on the table and so reluctantly came to the conclusion that he would need to make the first step himself. He hoped that if he made it halfway up the ladder, he might then persuade them to pull him up the rest of the way. However, he pushed that hope away, for he feared that whoever this man was, he was a tough old cookie. Yet at the same time, deep down he did get a little glimpse of someone who believed and valued him and wanted him to be the very best goat that he could be. Something in that felt very safe, kind and caring.

 

Eventually he took the first step and the man and the sheep hollered with cheers and congratulations. He looked up and was amazed, for here sat two individuals who were genuinely delighted that he had made the first step. What a new feeling that was for him. So few had ever genuinely been pleased with him, it didn't matter what he had done. Yet here were two strangers willing to sit and be with him, offering him a way out, genuinely seeming to care and want the very, very best for him.

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He looked up into their eyes one more time and looked down and marked this first step by patting himself on the back. Although this was only the first step and there were many more to go, he knew that in some ways it was the hardest. For he knew now that his destiny lay within his own hands and he had accepted that in order to be free to be all he might be, he would need to dig himself out of the pits that he had fallen into in the first place.

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