Waiting
[Psalms 130]
One of the shortcomings that I realized when I looked at myself is "impatience." And because of my impatience, I think I sometimes hurt others with quick words and/or actions. Moreover, I got things wrong because I was impatient. In the midst of that, the word God gave me to meditate on was 2 Timothy 3:4 – “treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--.” The Bible says when there will be terrible times in the last days (v. 1), people will be “rash” (v. 4). Why do we get rash? Why do we get impatient? It seems that we become impatient when we fall into the thought that we can't wait any longer and almost at the same time we give up patience. Then we do what we want. This impatience leads to the inability to wait for God's will, creating wrong plans and methods, and eventually with terrible results. Impatience leads us to adopt a worldly and carnal plan and course of action. For example, we take Abraham and Sarah. Despite receiving the word of promise from God, she gave up patience in faith and became preoccupied with impatience. In the end, Sarah encouraged her husband, Abram, to sleep with her maidservant Hagar, the Egyptian (Gen. 16:1-2). Abram accepted her counsel and slept with Hagar, and eventually they had a son named Ishmael. But, as we know, Ishmael wasn’t the seed of promise. Isaac was the seed of promise. The terrible consequence of impatience is giving up faith and patience (Internet). So I guess there is a saying that waiting is a virtue. Waiting is an essential element in our life of faith.
This is what Psalms 62:1, 5 says: “My soul waits in silence for God only; From Him is my salvation. … My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him.” Through these words, we have been taught that we must trust exclusively in God, who is our salvation, our hope, the rock and the fortress. The reason is because it is our strength to trust in God quietly and completely (Isa.30:15). We must wait in silence for God only because our hope in from Him (Ps. 65:5). Surely the God of salvation will deliver us.
In Psalms 130:6, the psalmist compared his waiting as follow: “My soul waits for the Lord More than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.” The psalmist spoke of his waiting compared to the watchmen waiting for the morning. By comparison he was confessing that his soul waited for the Lord more than the watchmen waited for the morning. Who were “the watchmen”? The watchmen were people who stand on the wall all night to protect their own people on the wall, in case the enemy might invade. In other words, the watchmen were the ones who guarded the wall to see if the enemy had invaded without sleeping. What did these watchmen wait for the most? It was “the morning”. They looked forward to the brightness of the night (Park). With this earnest anticipation, the psalmist was waiting for the Lord. The psalmist was waiting eagerly for the Lord with more earnest wait than the watchmen waited for the morning. In such an earnest wait, the psalmist was going up to the temple as he was singing Psalms 130.
What was the psalmist so eagerly waiting for the Lord? It was the word of God. Look at Psalms 130:5 – “I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.” The word of God that the psalmist was waiting for was God's forgiveness and salvation according to the revealed word (Park). Here we can guess that the psalmist sinned against God and was in a painful situation due to God's discipline. What was that painful situation? Look at verse 1: “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.” The depths that the psalmist was laid in because of his sin means an intense tribulation that made him appear drowned in water and suffocates (Park). Although like Jonah who disobeyed God (Jon. 1:2-3) and went into the depth, trapped in a big fish (v. 17) that was the deep waters under the sea and cried out to God (ch. 2), the psalmist earnestly cry out to Him. Look at Psalms 130:1-2: “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.” In the midst of such earnest prayer, the psalmist knew that if the Lord didn’t condone all of his sins from the past to the present, but condemned (Park), then there would be no one standing before the Lord. So he said, “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (v. 3) If God doesn’t forgive our sins and records all our past, present, and future sins, there is no one in this world who dares to stand before the holy Lord. He couldn’t dare to stand before the Holy Lord as a sinner. Nevertheless, the psalmist believed in God's pardon and humbly and in fear of God (v. 4) prayed to Him for forgiveness of his sin. Then he was waiting for God's words of forgiveness. How long could he wait for this? After committing a sin, when we look to God in a deep depression due to God's discipline and pray earnestly for His forgiveness, we will eagerly wait for God to say this after that prayer: ‘I have wiped out all of your sins and erased them. I don’t even remember your sins anymore.’ If we could hear that voice of God, how could we not dance and praise and worship God in freedom and liberation?
After praying earnestly for God to forgive him, the psalmist waited silently in faith before God because he longed to hear the words of God's forgiveness. In the midst of that, the psalmist prayed earnestly and waited for God to deliver him as evidence that God had forgiven his sins from the depths of the painful situation that came to him due to his sin. In other words, he prayed, looked forward to, and waited for God's saving grace. How was the psalmist able to wait and pray for the saving grace of God? I found the answer in verses 7-8: “O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is lovingkindness, And with Him is abundant redemption. And He will redeem Israel From all his iniquities.” Because the psalmist believed in God's lovingkindness and abundant redemption, he was able to pray, expect, and wait for the grace of salvation and forgiveness of sin. Do you really believe in God's lovingkindness and abundant redemption? Do you believe that God is the redeemer of all your sins?
Are any of you lying deep like the psalmist? Are we not in the midst of extreme trouble, as if we are drowning and sinking deeper and deeper? Maybe the reason is because of our sins. Then, like the psalmist, let's look and hope in God's lovingkindness and abundant redemption with faith, praying earnestly, expecting, and waiting with longing for the forgiveness of sins and the grace of God's salvation. Let's wait for the Lord more than the watchman waits for the morning. Surely God will forgive us for all our sins and deliver us even in the midst of the extreme trouble we face.
Longing for freedom and the joy of salvation from sin,
James Kim
(Relying on the abundant lovingkindness of God who waits more earnestly for those who eagerly wait for the word of God)