Waiting patiently with eyes of faith

⁵I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
⁶my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6)

I do not know how frequently I will include a background story (i.e. what caused me to think about the subject at hand) in my posts, but for this post I felt that sharing would benefit the purpose of the blog, namely, to help the readers and me come to treasure Christ more as he is revealed in Scripture. I would like to share the story to demonstrate my wrong perspective about seeking the Lord, and then I would like to share some thoughts on Psalm 130 that will hopefully introduce a more Biblical understanding of seeking the Lord. That is, seeking the Lord by waiting patiently with eyes of faith.

The wrong attitude: seeking the Lord in impatience, fear, and unbelief

This week, I learned some hard lessons about what it means to "wait for the LORD." School is done for the semester, and my summer job does not start until Monday, so this week I spent a considerable amount of time reading my Bible and praying, and really seeking to be filled more with the Spirit. Until yesterday, I had been disappointed by the outcome of all my study and prayer. I felt that the Lord did not want to meet with me. However, something I read in "Charity and its Fruits" by Jonathan Edwards compelled me to look up "wait" in my Bible concordance. After looking at a few other verses in the Psalms, I came across Psalm 130, and the Spirit convicted my heart. My attitude was not that of the Psalmist's.

My (then unrevealed) attitude was, "Father, I am seeking you, and you promised that you will draw near to me and fill me with your Spirit if I draw near to you. So here is my plan: I spend my week off praying and reading a lot, and you show up now because this week I am spending more time with you than I probably will for the rest of the summer." Now, there is nothing wrong and everything right with standing on the promises of God in his Word. My problem was that I was not reading the promises in the light of the rest of Scripture, and was trusting that God would do what he promised... in my timing.

I see at least three things wrong with my attitude: impatience, fear, and unbelief.
Impatience. Sometimes, when I have really sought God about something, the answer has been delayed. And in the delay, I have gotten impatient, my fervency for my prayer to be answered has waned, and I have let the desire to have the prayer answer die.
Fear. I was afraid that my desire would wane again this time. So the "remedy" that I prescribed for myself was to get God to act in my timing, while the desire was fresh.
Unbelief. My impatience and fear were rooted in my unbelief. I did not believe that God truly wanted to meet with me, simply because he was not doing it in my timing. Since God's promises were not meeting my format, I rejected the promises. In response to one verse, I literally said, "I don't believe it!", and stormed away from my Bible. However, that was not where the act of unbelief began, but was merely the manifestation of it. (See Matthew 12:34)

The right attitude: seeking the Lord by waiting patiently with eyes of faith

I think that Psalm 130:5-6 tells us how to seek the Lord, and gives an attitude perfectly opposite to the one I had. I'll quote the Psalm again:

⁵I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
⁶my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6)

There are a few key things I would like to point out in these verses:

1) Hope

a) The nature of hope. Hope can be a confusing word. The meaning of this word here is not some vague "I hope I win the lottery" kind of hope. This is a hope that is founded on something of which we are certain, but has not yet happened. This can be seen in multiple places throughout Scripture, but let us just look at two:

⁵ Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation (Psalm 42:5)

Notice the ever-so-important word, "for". "Hope in God; for I shall again praise him." Why does the Psalmist hope in God? It's not because there is this vague, maybe-it-will-happen, uncertain desire for the future. He hopes in God because he knows that he will again be able to praise God in the house of God (see the rest of the Psalm for that context). Again,

⁵For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
⁶ He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
⁷On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God. (Psalm 62:5-7)

This is an assured hope! The variable pertaining to our hope in God is not whether or not he will answer us, but when he will answer us (that belongs in point 2, but keep it in mind)

b) The object of hope. In Psalm 130, the Psalmist hopes in the word of God, that is, the promises of Scripture. The Psalmist is saying, "Yes God, I believe that what you have promised in your Word is true!" He hopes (as defined above!) that God will be faithful to do what he promised (in this context, the promise seems to be the redemption of Israel), even though the Psalmist may not be experiencing the promise. But how does that work? Does not the fact that he is not currently experiencing the promise mean that God is a liar? The Psalmist does not seem to think so. It is because he understands that we are to wait on the Lord.

2) Waiting

Now that we know what kind of hope to have in the Lord, we can see what kind of waiting is associated with that hope. This is so exciting! We know that the Psalmist is waiting on the Lord, and that he hopes in his Word. What kind of waiting is associated with something that one knows will happen? Maybe a waiting like this:

⁶my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

This verse gives a God-inspired analogy to how we are to wait on the Lord: even as a watchman waits for the morning. Now, how does the watchman wait for the morning? He patiently waits for the morning knowing that it will come! It may seem like it is a long time coming; there may be times when he thinks he sees that faint glow on the horizon, but it turns out to be his imagination, or maybe a torch in the distance; but in the end, no matter how many disappointments, no matter how long it seems, he knows that the morning is coming. And the morning always does come.

Why "Waiting patiently with eyes of faith"?

I trust that the "Waiting patiently" part is clear at this point. However, maybe it seems at this point that the title of this entry should be "...with eyes of hope". I would like to show the faith-hope connection onto which, if you are familiar with your Bible, you have probably already latched:

¹Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

When the Psalmist states "in his word I hope", this is a statement of faith. Faith is the assurance [the steadfast holding onto the promise] of things hoped for. "By FAITH I hope in your Word! By FAITH I hope that the sun will rise, because it has always been true to rise, and has not failed me yet!" Faith is what keeps our hope alive when the dawn seems long in coming.

Why must we wait?

This was my question. "Okay, I understand that we are to wait with eyes of faith, but why must we wait?" There are a number ways to answer this question. Ultimately, we must wait because "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases." (Psalm 115:3) He does not do all that we please, but all that he pleases. But that truth may not be help you; it may not be encouraging to hear "The sun rises when it pleases" when you are floundering in the dark!

The question to ask, perhaps, is not only "why must we wait?" but also "why is it worth waiting?" How can we know that the sunrise with be worth the night watch? The sun will rise when it pleases; is that a good thing for us? I would like to encourage you with the promises of God; promises about how he will always relate to us. Waiting on the Lord is worth the wait because he rejoiced to act for our good:

• ...he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:10-11).
• No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11)
• God works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28)
• ³⁹ I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. ⁴⁰ I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. ⁴¹ I will rejoice in doing them good ... with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:39-41)

We can rest assured that, although we may not now understand why we must wait, the waiting is worth it, because it is for our good. One more promise to consider:

From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)

Let us pray for our Father to increase our faith, so that when the dawn does seem long in coming, we can look with the eyes of faith toward the dawn and be assured of the thing for which we are hoping, even as we wait patiently in the night.