Wait for the Lord’s Word!
[Psalm 119:73-80]
Waiting is a virtue. In particular, waiting for God’s answer to our prayers while praying with faith and expectation is one of the beautiful aspects of being a Christian. The image of a believer who looks at the Lord of hope with faith and waits for His salvation is a beautiful one. In today’s passage, Psalm 119:74, we see a beautiful picture of the faithful psalmist: “Those who fear You will be glad when they see me, because I have hoped in Your word.” Based on this verse, under the title "Wait for the Lord’s Word!", I would like to share two lessons on how we should wait.
First, we must wait with knowledge.
Let’s look at Psalm 119:75: “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.” What is the psalmist telling us that we should know?
(1) We must know that the Lord’s judgments are righteous.
The psalmist was suffering because of the proud. These proud people falsely accused the psalmist (v. 78). Even so, the psalmist, fearing the Lord (vv. 74, 79), obeyed His law (vv. 77, 80). Therefore, trusting in God’s righteous judgment, he prayed: “Let the proud be ashamed” (v. 78), and “Let me not be ashamed” (v. 80).
(2) We must know that when the Lord afflicts us, it is due to His faithfulness.
What does this mean? Even though the psalmist was suffering because of the proud, he believed that God, in His faithfulness, would carry out His perfect will (v. 75). What is this perfect will of God? One aspect of it is that God trains us through suffering, especially by making us cling to His word, praying earnestly and waiting with hope for the fulfillment of His promises. We must know and believe in God’s faithfulness and righteousness, and wait for the Lord with faith. When we suffer because of the proud, we must wait, believing in God’s righteous judgment and His faithfulness.
Second, we must wait by praying.
What should we pray for while we wait? In this passage, the psalmist gives us five prayer requests:
(1) We Must Seek the Lord’s Comfort
Let us look at Psalm 119:76: “Let, I pray, your merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to your word to your servant.” The psalmist desired the Lord’s comfort more than anyone else’s comfort amid his suffering. He made the Lord’s mercy his own personal “comfort.” We must make the Lord’s mercy, which is better than life itself (Psalm 63:3), our comfort, and when we are suffering, we should seek God's comfort.
(2) We Must Seek the Lord’s Mercy
Let us look at Psalm 119:77: “Let your tender mercies come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.” When we are in distress, we should, like the psalmist, make the Lord’s mercy our “comfort” and also make the Lord’s law our “delight.” In the midst of this, we must seek the Lord’s mercy. Through suffering, we come to rejoice in God’s word, and as we delight in His word, we are made aware of our own sins. In that moment, we cannot help but seek the Lord’s mercy.
(3) We Must Seek the Lord’s Justice
Let us look at Psalm 119:78: “Let the proud be ashamed, for they treated me wrongly with falsehood; but I will meditate on your precepts.” The cause of the psalmist’s suffering was the “proud” (v. 78). They falsely brought him down. They tormented him with lies. Amid this suffering, the psalmist desired even more to learn the word of the Lord (v. 73) and meditate on it (v. 78). And in the midst of suffering, the psalmist, who was holding onto and waiting for God’s word, sought the Lord’s justice. He asked God to bring shame upon the proud.
(4) We Must Seek the Lord’s Provision
Let us look at Psalm 119:79: “Let those who fear you turn to me, those who know your testimonies.” When the psalmist was suffering, God provided him with fellow believers who feared the Lord. What great comfort this must have been in the midst of his suffering! When we are suffering, we should pray to God to send us fellow believers who fear the Lord. And when God answers our prayer and sends us these faithful companions, we should move forward together, comforting one another and looking to the Lord’s word as we overcome our struggles.
(5) We Must Seek the Lord’s Perfection
Let us look at Psalm 119:80: “Let my heart be perfect in your statutes, that I may not be ashamed.” The psalmist, in the midst of his suffering, asked God to perfect his heart through His word. He took his suffering as an opportunity to perfect his heart with the word of the Lord. We too, like the psalmist, must take our pain and struggles as an opportunity to perfect our hearts with God’s word.
We must wait for the Lord’s word. But as we wait, we must wait with understanding. We must wait knowing that the Lord’s judgments are righteous. We must also wait knowing that when the Lord afflicts us, it is because of His faithfulness. We must wait while praying. We must wait for the Lord’s word, seeking His comfort, mercy, justice, provision, and perfection.
While waiting for God’s word,
Pastor James Kim
(Praying for patience, based on the knowledge of the truth)