Waiting in faith
by Rev Dr Noel Due
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Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not over the one who prospers, over the man who carries out evil (Psalm 37:7)!
Read Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
One of our friends has a saying: ‘What others think about me is none of my business’.
Psalm 37 is one of many psalms that speak directly to a true difficulty: how do we live in a world in which evil seems to prosper and God’s people suffer?
The psalms give many different answers to this question. Sometimes they talk about perpetrators being caught up in their own schemes and brought down by their own foolishness. Sometimes they talk about God’s wrath and judgement entering directly to end the evil. Sometimes they teach patient endurance that outlasts the evil. Sometimes they suggest that there is no direct answer.
Always, however, they point us to faith.
In the Old Testament, to ‘wait on the Lord’, to ‘hope in the Lord’, and to ‘trust the Lord’ are virtually interchangeable.
In the Book of Psalms, the suffering being endured is often social rather than physical. It is taunting, mocking, deriding and misrepresenting. It is ostracism, rejection and shunning.
At such times, we are often driven inward, and our concern is focused on what other people think of us. And, therefore, what we think of ourselves, because of what other people think of us! But what other people think is not our business.
Our business is to know what God thinks of us.
And to that, we have a resounding answer: he loves us with love inexpressible and grace unfathomable. We see and know that love in the face and embrace of Jesus. We know it in internal witness of the Spirit, in the words of the gospel, in the comfort and assurance of the sacraments.
God’s work turns us out of our depressive introspection to look to him. He is the one for whom we wait.
Thank you, Father, for caring for us. Thank you that your embrace carries us from the womb to the grave and beyond, with no condemnation in Jesus and no separation possible, because of our union with him. Thank you for the gift of your Son, in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.
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