Psalm 37:7

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”

This verse has been a verse that I have held really close to my heart over the last few years. It’s been a source of encouragement and has helped me keep my head above the raging waters at times.

Just be still, Michelle, you’re time will come; God will come through. You will see his promises fulfilled; you just have to wait patiently for them.

Something with this reasoning, I have realized, is wrong.

As we read through Psalms a few weeks ago I saw this verse in a different light. I understood this phrase differently. In this school we start each book by looking at the text from a wide view. We get a broad perspective of the book as a whole. With each step the magnification of our lens is increased until we find ourselves dissecting the text verse by verse, phrase by phrase, word by word.

I began to see a pattern. Eleven times in the first book of Psalms David speaks about waiting for the Lord. He writes that he “waited patiently for the Lord” (Ps. 40:1); David declares that “It is for you, O Lord, that I wait” (Ps. 38:15), and he encourages the reader to “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:37). Waiting. David is always waiting. In these three instances David is waiting for one specific thing : the Lord.

This struck me. David isn’t waiting for God’s blessing, deliverance, vengeance, or even guidance, though those are things worth waiting for and David surly does wait for them. No, he is waiting for the Lord.

I read this and was kind of stopped in my thoughts. There isn’t really anything after that : “I waited patiently for the Lord” “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” David is waiting for God.

I occurred to me…I have been waiting for God in all the wrong ways. I have been waiting for God to move. I have been waiting for God to heal. I have been waiting for God to guide. I have been waiting for God to speak. I have been waiting for God to fulfill his promises to me. I have been waiting for the things God can give me. I haven’t been waiting for God.

I have lost sight of what my true reward is : God, simply him.

I have diminished the value of the great gift it is to have God by not waiting for him but waiting, instead, for what he can give me.

He is what I wait for, because in him is fullness of … E  V  E  R  Y  T  H  I  N  G

In him, not his promises, is completion. In God.

My life should be characterized by my pursuit of God not of my pursuit of the things I gain from God.

So let me ask you…

W H A T   A R E   Y O U   W A I T I N G   F O R?