Waiting Well

WATCH TODAY’S EPISODE ON YOUTUBE.

CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

SCRIPTURE

Psalm 42 NIV

As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

By day the LORD directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock, 
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
     Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

CONSIDER THIS

Psalm 42 captures a soul in the midst of longing—a deep, desperate thirst for God. In many ways, this is the heart-cry of Advent: longing and hoping and waiting for God.

This season of waiting invites us to embrace the tension between our joy in what we have received already and our hope for what is yet to come.

Unfortunately, waiting isn’t something most of us are naturally good at, and few of us ever learn to wait well. This has only been exacerbated as things become more and more efficient and we have access to the whole world of information and things to buy at our fingertips.

Waiting is an active posture that requires very little action other than the thing itself. It can feel discouraging, boring, and even unsettling. This is why waiting is one of the most formative experiences in our lives.

Waiting confronts things in us, bringing things to the surface we would not have otherwise known were there—things we believe about God, about ourselves, and about the world around us when we wait. For example, we may think we have dealt with our control issues, but waiting just beyond the threshold of what we can tolerate, we realize we have much further to go.

Scripture reveals that how we wait matters. It shapes us in ways nothing else can.

There are many ways to wait. We can wait patiently, angrily, quietly, loudly, anxiously, hopefully, and so forth. The question I want to ask us today is this: How do we wait well? By well, I mean: How do we wait in a way that welcomes all that God is wanting to do in us in this moment? What does waiting that honors God look like? That trusts instead of grabs for control? That embraces the gift of waiting? How do we wait in hope? Not just hope for a certain outcome, but hope in God?

The psalm reveals there are actually a few practices we can engage in while waiting to help us wait well: remember, pray, and worship.

REMEMBER—Builds Faith

These things I remember . . . (v. 4a)

The words of the psalmist here are not just looking back on the good old days, but rather the trusting cries of someone who believes God’s past goodness is a promise for the future and in this present moment. Remembering isn’t just nostalgia. It’s an act which builds faith and anchors us in the memory of God’s past faithfulness. When we remember while we wait, we are reorienting our hearts to trust that God will act faithfully again. Remembering reminds us that our stories are part of a much bigger and grander story—one in which God has never faltered and will not now.

PRAY—Builds Intimacy

. . . as I pour out my soul . . . (v. 4a)

If you’ve ever had to wait for something, you know that waiting has a way of bringing things to the surface—worries, doubts, questions, beliefs we didn’t know we had, and a variety of emotions. While it may seem easier to ignore them for various reasons, prayer gives us a space to name these and lay them before God.

The psalms are full of examples. Looking at our psalm today, we see that no question is too offensive and no concern is too small for God: “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” (v. 9).

When we name these things, it’s not like God wasn’t aware of them already. He knows us more deeply than we know ourselves, and “before a word is on [our] tongue, [He knows] it completely” (Ps. 139:4). The invitation to pour out one’s soul is not about being more known by God, but becoming more aware of God’s knowledge of us and the depth to which God desires to bring healing and wholeness to us.

WORSHIP—Expresses Love

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God. (v. 5)

In this verse, the psalmist expresses the deep sadness of his soul but chooses to respond to it by worshipping. Why? Because worship is an act of response to God. Despite feeling downcast and disturbed, the psalmist calls himself to hope in God and to praise God as Savior.

This is a powerful moment of self-coaching, where the psalmist doesn’t wait for his emotions to change but chooses to lift his eyes to the truth of who God is. This decision to worship shifts his perspective from the present state of his soul to the faithfulness of God. This does not deny the state of the soul, but is actually what heals it.

Worship helps us see God more clearly, which is why remembering and prayer are such important practices that lead us into worship. As we recall God’s past faithfulness and pour out our souls before Him, we start to see more fully the goodness and love of God, even in the midst of hardship. In that clarity, we are moved to respond with love and adoration.

Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

By day the LORD directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life. (vv. 7–8)