Waiting is not a waste of time

A psalm is like music. It's like poetry. It should be read and even felt fully and experientially. So we don’t zoom in on every word and line (like we do with a New Testament letter, perhaps); we zoom out. We widen our gaze to capture the whole picture a psalmist is painting with words, emotions, and passion. That’s not to say we don’t learn truths about God’s nature and character through the Psalms. Instead, we learn them differently. 

The shepherd-turned-king, David, is in a familiar space in Psalm 27. It's familiar to any of us who believe in the God of the Bible. We've got truth in our heads and hearts. We've learned to trust God and his character. We've read our Bibles. We've heard sermons and sung songs. And yet … despite what we know ... what we've heard ... what we've sung ... what we've experienced … we face a new moment. We face a new or greater need, fresh suffering, or disappointment. We experience fresh criticism or adversity or sorrow. We find ourselves waiting again. I think this is one of the hardest things about being a Christian: reading the truth of God in his Word and then waiting for that reality to show up in our lives and world.

David was in that space.

Jesus' disciples were in that space.

I think we're all in that space.

We're all waiting. Few things describe our faith better than waiting. The writer of Hebrews tells us our faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In the big picture, we're waiting for Jesus to come back. In our lifetime, we're waiting for flourishment and wholeness. Daily, we await peace, provision, joy, and help.

You see, the people of God are a people who wait. 

To be a Christian is to wait.

But contrary to our widespread presumption, waiting isn't the absence of action. It's not apathy. It's not resignment or laziness. Waiting is not a waste of time. When we zoom out, David is taking action. At the very least, we know that while David was waiting, he was writing. He was writing this psalm. However, we also see him take action in the content of his poem. Everything he says and does builds to a crescendo with a plea or proclamation. He builds to the last two verses: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:13-14). In his waiting, David is commanding his soul to believe something. He's training his heart to be patient, strong, and courageous in God.

By the end of this psalm, David seems like he's preaching to himself. More specifically, he's preaching the gospel to himself. Theologian Jerry Bridges explains, “To preach the gospel to yourself ... means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life” (The Disciplines of Grace, 59). That's what we ought to do while waiting. We out to face up and flee. We ought to preach the gospel to ourselves.