PSALM 130 – A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”
THEME OF THE DAY: WHEN GOD CALLS US TO WAIT. We are not a society that likes to wait. Whether it be in traffic, a check-out line at the grocery store, or being on hold with a customer service representative, generally, we are impatient. The age we live in of instant everything has done us no favors in this area. It is almost like “How did we ever live without Google?” Yet, in the spiritual life, and our walks with the Lord, our inability to wait stunts spiritual growth. Impatience does great damage when it comes to our spirituality because it kicks hard against one of God’s choice schools of teaching us the necessary lessons and virtues of the Christian life – waiting.
In today’s scripture, the Psalmist is in some type of deep agony – spiritual and/or emotional. He opens the Psalm with his pleading heart crying out of the depths of his pain. He is longing for the Lord’s help, His deliverance, and His Presence. And the Lord isn’t answering according to the timeline of the Psalmist. As we read on from his plea, he needs to be applauded. He understands what God is doing. The Psalmist has been placed in God’s school room of waiting – I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. And in this painful place, he clings to God’s Word knowing the Lord will be true to Him and His promises.
We, too, are like the Psalmist in at least two ways, hopefully, three, but at least two. First, each of us has encountered tough circumstances driving us to “out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” We also have been placed in God’s school room of waiting. But what about the third quality in the Psalmist? Do we cling to God’s Word, not complaining over His delay, but resting confidently in His promises of help and deliverance? We will only do so if we understand what God wants to teach us, and will teach us, in His school room of waiting. Here are a couple of lessons to be learned while in class.
We only learn glad submission to and patience in God’s will when He calls us to wait on Him to answer prayer, intercede in a circumstance, or draw near with His comforting presence in a tough trial. Once we get this, waiting is to develop glad submission and patience, then the chief result occurs – the development of the chief virtue for all spiritual growth, humility. And it was only able to be planted in our hearts when God put us in His school room of waiting. May we be good, submissive and patient learners when God calls us to class!
PRAYER: “Father, help me to learn the lessons You would teach me in the hard school of waiting on You.”
QUOTE: “We only learn submission to and patience in God’s will when God puts us in His school of waiting on Him.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim