Waiting on the Lord

by Peg Forbes, Worship Ministry Council Chair, Elder

Psalm 38

Whew! Not sure I have read Psalm 38 before, but if so, I imagine I read it quickly and said, "Enough of that, Lord!" Engaging with this somber psalm of guilt now, I am forced to see the heavy burden of my sin once more and the need to wait quietly before God, as David does in verse 15. It's a lesson I've been a long time learning.

Waiting on the Lord--much of my life this was a part of Christianity I never got. The world was moving fast and I wanted to move with it. No time for true reflection and penitence on the state of my soul--quick confession and prayer for redemption and I was on my way again, often only to repeat the same sins.

And those sins, I have since discovered, were mostly related to my unwillingness to slow down, to wait quietly before the Lord. I spoke hurtful words in anger or frustration or pride, not thinking of their effect on others. I allowed myself to be tempted into situations I was not comfortable with because I didn’t wait first on the Lord to guide me. So many times, as I look back on my life, David’s words of guilt and brokenness aptly describe my state.

I suspect that many of us have this problem. Waiting is not something we do well, whether it’s waiting in grocery lines or at the post office; waiting for replies to our emails or in traffic--we have things to do, people to meet, places to go! God reminds us in the Psalms, however, that while we “go nowhere by accident,” as Pastor Ray says, still, when we get there, taking the time to wait quietly on the Lord may help us to refrain from past sins and truly do God’s work in that place.

So, I am learning, I am changing. And now the Psalm I have adopted as my own is the corollary to David’s cry in Psalm 38. It is his own Psalm 62, verses 5 and 6, in which he says,

Let all that I am wait quietly before God,

for my hope is in Him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress where I will not be shaken. (NLT)