Recently in one of our prayer mornings we were reflecting on psalm 40. In the NIV version, the first 2 verses are translated:
I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
Waiting Patiently?
I don’t what you are like, but I’m not great at waiting. The other day when I was driving on the motorway, low on charge (I have an electric car). Stuck in motorway traffic, I decided to take the exit and work my way around the jam using the side roads. Unfortunately, I ran into roadworks so bad that everyone was turning around. A few miles later and even lower on charge, I made it back to the exit I had left and found that traffic jam on the motorway had cleared! I had lost time and was now even lower on charge and only just made it home.
Knowing that my namesake, David was a man of action, I wondered how he managed to wait ‘patiently’.
Stuck in the mud
Looking up the original words I discovered that instead of 2 words ‘waiting’ and ‘patiently’ the word waiting is repeated twice, literally, ‘I waited and waited’. It seems to me, that unlike me in the traffic, David had no choice but to wait as he was stuck in a slimy pit, unable to escape!
This is a graphic picture and for me it describes situations where we can see no way out. I also discovered something else about the word ‘waiting’. This is illustrated by a story one of our prayer group friends related.
He described a time years ago when he was canoeing with a friend down the River Wye when they became stuck in mud near Chepstow.
The only way they could get out was by attaching a rope to the canoe and dragging it out from the bank.
The Hebrew word for waiting literally means to bind fast or twist like a rope. We know that ropes derive their strength from the twisting of individual strands together.
I believe that more than patience, David learned, often the hard way, to wait on the Lord in times of dire need.
At the end of our rope!
In the waiting, David was binding himself to the Lord like a rope. The answer came as the Lord in a beautiful picture, bent down towards him, heard his cry and pulled him up.
A new song
It is in the seeking or waiting, even in desperate situations, that we learn to bind ourselves to the Lord and grow stronger in faith. Even more importantly, we learn to depend on him for deliverance rather than struggling in the mud to get ourselves out. There is then no cause for pride which says, ‘look how my strength and ingenuity got me through’. Rather, it becomes a testimony of the mercy and grace of God.
For David, this was expressed as new song of praise, leading many to put their trust in God like he had done.