I don’t know about you, but I’ve had days when I was so low I wondered if even God could see me. Life can drag you down to places you never meant to go, sometimes because of your own choices and sometimes because the world knocks you flat. I’ve spent a lot of time in the dust, face down, convinced that God only wants to meet us at our best. But that’s just not what I’ve found to be true. The longer I walk with Him, the more I see that God meets us where we are, not where we wish we were.
There’s this thread running through the whole Bible—God stooping down not just in a poetic sense but in gritty, ordinary life. He doesn’t stay far off, waiting for us to climb up. He comes down into the mess, the shame, the broken places. That’s who He is.
You see it throughout Scripture. Psalm 113 says,
“Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!”
He’s not afraid to get low. He reveals his greatness by willingly entering our smallness.
David knew that firsthand. In Psalm 18, when he was running for his life and felt completely overwhelmed, he said,
“He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. … Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.”
That gentleness—that stooping down—is what lifted David out of despair. God met him right in the pit and brought him up.
There’s this story in John’s gospel that always gets me. People caught a woman in sin and threw her down in the dirt before Jesus. She’s already condemned in her own eyes, and everyone else wants to finish the job. What does Jesus do?
“But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.”
He kneels in the dust with her. He’s not embarrassed by her shame. Jesus is not waiting for her to grovel. He stoops down, right where she is, and after the crowd walks away, He lifts her up and gives her back her future.
And then there’s the story Jesus told about the prodigal son in Luke 15—a kid who’d lost everything, humiliated and alone, rehearsing his apology as he trudged home.
“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
Before the son can even finish his speech, his father runs to meet him, embraces him, and restores him. That’s God’s heart—He runs, He stoops, He hugs you at your lowest.
Charles Spurgeon had a way of putting things that made you stop and think. He said,
“The lower he stoops to save us, the higher we ought to lift him in our adoring reverence… He stoops, and stoops, and stoops, and when He reaches our level and becomes man, he still stoops, and stoops, and stoops lower and deeper yet.”
It’s as if there’s no end to how far Jesus will go to get to you.
He also said,
“What a stoop He makes to the very lowest of mankind! To this most unworthy of men the Lord of glory… spoke with matchless grace.”
And Spurgeon wasn’t just talking about someone else—he meant people like you and me. The ones who know what it’s like to need grace.
And then there’s the cross—God stooping all the way down, taking on every ounce of our pain and sin. Spurgeon once cried out,
“O Son of God, how could You stoop so low as to take upon Yourself our nature, and in that nature to bleed and die…”
That’s what love looks like. That’s what grace looks like. It goes to the bottom, not just the top.
Paul puts it plainly in Philippians 2,
“But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
That’s the lowest stoop of all—God becoming a servant, hanging on a cross, all to lift us up.
Adrian Rogers said it in a way that makes it simple:
“The beauty of grace is that it meets us where we are and gives us what we don’t deserve.”
You don’t have to climb your way out of the pit for God to notice you. Grace says, “I’ll meet you in your mess.”
He also said,
“We can’t climb to Him—He stoops to us. Grace doesn’t wait for us at our best. Grace says, ‘I’ll meet you in your mess.’ So stop trying to climb out of the pit on your own, bow your heart, and let the grace of God carry you out.”
If you’re reading this feeling bowed down, like there’s no way up, you’re in the perfect spot for God to do His best work. I’ve been in the pit, and I’ve watched God meet me there. Not because I deserved it, not because I earned it, but because that’s who He is.
So wherever you are right now—ashamed, angry, tired, lost—know this: God’s already stooped down to find you. His arms are long enough, His mercy is deep enough, and you are not beyond His reach. Don’t wait till you feel worthy. Just let Him meet you where you are.