“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Psalm 130:5).
Waiting is a challenge. This past week I got to experience the joys of waiting for trains, changing timetables and uncertain schedules. These days train platforms have countdowns to the trains arrival. You can literally watch time go by!
I don’t much like waiting, and the world of today understands. We are an instant culture. Everything is on-line or on tap. Have now, pay later. Don’t wait. Impatience fuels us – we want our way and we want it now!
A capacity to wait is a hard fought victory. The psalm writer waits for the Lord. The fact is we often have to wait for God. God may be with us, but in many areas of our lives we frequently have to wait – for understanding, for guidance, for direction. He is not ‘on tap’, as though he is simply there at our convenience. There are times when it can seem like God is absent.
The psalm writer says “my whole being waits”. Waiting is not a simple thing. It involves all of us. Waiting is trusting. It is believing that God acts in his time. It is being attentive to His Spirit within.
Waiting helps us see that we cannot always make things happen. In fact, the path of maturity requires us to see our weakness and dependence. In waiting we are not in control of outcomes. We walk by faith, not by sight.
Hence the writer says “and in his word I put my hope”. Waiting is not empty time or wasted time. It is time that gives us a choice – do we trust that God will act in his time, or do we choose to get frustrated and short-circuit the process?
How does this connect for us today? Perhaps we get frustrated because people are slow to change, or we get frustrated because God is not changing us as we want – our addictions or obsessions, and we are tempted to give up or find solutions that seem to be easier or to escape from the process we are being taken through?
To put our hope in God’s word is to put our hope in God. It is to take us away from those thoughts which chase each other in our minds, and look to have God’s perspective on our circumstances.
Our waiting is opportunity. We can choose to trust.