I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Psalm 130:5-8
Yesterday we looked at the first part of the Psalm as we saw that as Christians, we have full assurance and eternal safety as we face the coming weeks. Our sins have been forgiven and we are therefore free. Today, we turn to the second part of Psalm for our devotion.
We’re going to have to do a lot of waiting over the next few months. My sister is currently in Italy and she was telling me last night of the odd experience of waiting in a queue outside a supermarket two meters apart from everyone else. We might need to wait for things we’ve taken for granted, we might even have to wait for news about a loved one and we’ll certainly be waiting for life to get back to normal.
But what about waiting for the Lord?
As Christians, there are certain things that we don’t need to wait for, as we saw yesterday, our salvation is secure, and we can enjoy full acceptance and access to God through Jesus Christ. But in this world, there will always be an element of waiting, as Paul said “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Difficult times and uncertainty can test our faith and can cause us to question the goodness and sovereignty of God, but we are told to wait and hope. This waiting and hoping is not done in a vacuum as a pie in the sky kind of hope in a religious system, or our own ability to keep going. No, we wait for the Lord and hope in his word, and that is real hope!
The Lord will not let us down, His love is steadfast, and His redemption is real and effective. Christ was, and is, a real man. The cross was real, and the resurrection really happened, and therefore we have certainty that the same power works in us for the glory of God. Christ is in heaven now interceding for us and the same hands that were crucified for you and me are now working everything out for our good and for his glory.
So today, wait for the Lord. Let your soul wait and hope for him even more than the watchmen wait for the morning. The night may be dark and uncertain, but as the watchmen knew that the morning was coming, we know that our Lord and Saviour is coming!
Written by Steffan Job (Capel y Ffynnon, Bangor)