Waiting on God
I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40:1-3
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While the kind of waiting this psalm describes is somewhat foreign to our twenty-first-century demand for quick responses, quick solutions, and quick results, it is truly a key to effective prayer. We may tend to think of waiting as passive—sitting and doing nothing until someone or something changes—or as a waste of time (we want to be busy accomplishing things). But in this passage waiting is very active; it’s continuing to pray that God will work and staying on the lookout for him to put forth his power. To wait with the kind of hopeful expectation and confidence David showed, we must know the One we are waiting for—not a “slow” God but a patient one. Not a God who is uninvolved but the One whose holy presence is closer to us than our own breath. He is the Lord who in a heartbeat can lift us out of the pit of despair, steady us, and fill us with a brand-new song. This is the God we wait on, and he rewards those who wait for him.
Prayers:
LORD, I look to you to work within me a spirit of patient waiting. Grant me hope and expectation as I watch for you to display your grace in my life. Keep me from losing heart or becoming impatient, and cause me to continue to pray as I wait to see your powerful hand at work.
Quotes:
IT IS BY THE PRESENCE OF GOD, AS HE CAN IN CHRIST BY HIS HOLY SPIRIT MAKE HIMSELF KNOWN, AND KEEP THE SOUL UNDER ITS COVERING AND SHADOW, THAT WILL AWAKEN AND STRENGTHEN THE TRUE WAITING SPIRIT. LET US BE STILL AND WAIT AND WORSHIP UNTIL WE KNOW HOW NEAR HE IS, AND THEN SAY, “ON THEE DO I WAIT.”
Andrew Murray (1828–1917)
The One Year Bible Readings for today are: Job 16:1–19:29; 1 Corinthians 16:1-24; Psalm 40:1-10 and Proverbs 22:1.
