the psalm i love (you may already know for being a reader for a while) is psalm 27. in a previous post i shared of how i named my 2nd son uriah from this psalm. click here to read that story.
if i could give psalm 27 any title i wanted i would title it a psalm of fearless trust in God. i think this is such an important passage of scripture for my life because of my lifelong battle with fear and trusting God. it seems like over and over again God brings me back to this issue to remove one more layer of the onion and get closer to the deep places of my heart that i carefully guard. i gain one level of victory that gives me grace for the upcoming season, and then i need a deeper level for the next.
i have faced in the past six months a lot of issues in my life that challenge my tendency towards fear and away from trusting the Lord. i have shed many tears asking the Lord to not only change these circumstances, but also asking to awaken hope in me in the midst of them. i am finding that hope isn't only about things someday getting better or circumstances someday changing. the deep truth of hope is anchored in the belief that God can be trusted and His lovingkindness never fails and never ends. of course we all would love for certain things in life to just be different. sometimes there are so many things that need to change that the pressures are overwhelming. yet the essence of fearless trust in Him is to be able to say that even if nothing ever changes, God isn't going to leave me alone to be completely consumed or drowned in my circumstances. this is the essence of hope. click here and here to read more about this kind of hope.
though i have lots of thoughts swirling around my head this morning about this subject, i am going to try to focus on just this one and save the others for a later post. the last verse of psalm 27 says:
wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.i don't know about those of you reading, but i hate to wait. i think one of the character traits the Lord has had to work on the most in my life is patience. and yet, david's sums up his psalm in this final encouragement, "wait on the Lord."
i looked up the word wait in the hebrew on blue letter bible and it is the word qavah. qavah is not a passive waiting. it is very active:
to wait, look for, hope, expect.the lexicon describes this as:
waiting, to look eagerly for, to lie in wait for, to wait for, to linger
to collect, to bind together, to be collected
1. to twist, to bind
2. to be strong, robust (binding fast, tying fast is applied to strength)
3. to expect, to await (enduring, remaining, which differs little from the notion of strength)
to expect Jehovah - His aid, to fix one's hope on Him
a couple of these really speak to me. for one, hope, which is a common theme to this season in my life, shows up in these definitions. to wait in this context means to hope. i love how active this waiting and hoping is - it is expectant; it is eager; it is lingering. when i think of linger, i think of taking that extra moment when all the distractions come crowding out the heart connection with God and just purposing to fix my eyes on Him.
i love that this type of waiting is equated with strength. it is like the twists of a rope that make it strong enough to test with lots of pressure. it is enduring, remaining strong, and fixed. it is to expect God to help. this is powerful to me right where i am!
so, just as He clothes the lilies of the field, that are here one day and gone tomorrow, He will also take care of you and me. we can expect this of Him. it is His very nature, and His lovingkindness towards us cannot fail or ever end. so be strong. take heart. wait on the Lord.
charis
