Singing Psalm 31 you wait with patience for an answer
What if as soon as you ask, God answers you? It would be easy to wait with patience or without it.
“…you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.” ~ Isaiah 30:19
What if God answers you immediately but you don’t see it or perceive it? Ah, here you wait with patience.
The pit, being lied about, and the prison were but vehicles that God used to fulfill his purposes for Joseph.
As soon as Daniel began to pray for mercy, a word went out. He was heard at the very beginning of his pleas.
You expect that communication between the infinite Creator and his finite creatures is nothing like peers communicating. We understand more than the animals, but our understanding is far closer to theirs than it is to God’s.
Yet God knows your frame and has compassion on you. Judgment is his strange work. He illuminates and renews your mind at just the right time to perceive what he has done, is doing, and will do.
What you are going through right now is, by faith, invisibly achieving the answer to your petitions for God to see and to have mercy.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” ~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
We are creatures of our senses, and the Lord does satisfy them all in due time. He gives you peace as you wait with patience.
But to really trust the Lord, you must understand that what is seen is temporary. It is what is unseen that is eternal and therefore more real than anything you can sense.
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” ~ Isaiah 26:3-4, 8-9
You wait with patience for answers to these sorts of questions:
Who would you have my family and me be with and bless in some way, Lord?
What would you have your church do next?
Where would you establish me and have me go?
When will you make your plans clear to your people? How long must we wait with patience?
How would you have us carry out our lives?
Why am I here, Lord, and why do you sometimes seem far off?
You look into the Scriptures and wait with patience looking out for opportunities to believe God’s promises and know his purposes for you. You are thankful that you get to keep his commands and heed his warnings.
“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” ~ Isaiah 30:21
You wait with patience for his direction to give as he has given to you, to love your neighbor as Jesus loves you.
“My feet you have established, Where they can safely go.
“You are my rock and fortress; For Your name lead and guide.” ~ Psalm 31:8, 21
Singing Psalm 31 you wait with patience for friendship
“He showed His love to me.” ~ Psalm 31:21
Singing Psalm 31 you are with the psalmist in the midst of being mocked, dreaded, avoided, rejected, gossiped about, lied about, disdained, and forgotten.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” ~ John 15:13
The Lord not only says he loves you but is with you, and through it all, he shows you his love.
“In you, LORD, I take refuge.” ~ Psalm 31:1
You wait with patience until he blesses you to be a blessing to others.
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” ~ Isaiah 30:18
You wait with patience for friendship with God, his people, and those you hope will become his people. You remember that at one time you were not his people but now you are on the path to glorify and enjoy him, your best friend, now, and forever.
Singing Psalm 31 you wait with patience perceiving you are within God’s secret presence
“How great the good You’ve gathered For those revering You,Stored up for all who trust You Where sons of men may view.
Within Your secret presence, There You preserve their life,Away from whispered scheming, And far from tongues of strife.” ~ Psalm 31:19-20
There have been times when God’s Spirit rushes upon people. God, the Holy Spirit, notably acted suddenly to change these men, their situations, and their understanding of them: Gideon, Samson, Saul, David, Daniel, Peter, and Paul.
The Holy Spirit rushed on those who were gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost after Jesus rose from the dead. He gave them utterance and enabled them to understand one another.
They were given a new heart, a new mind, a new voice, and a new spirit in an instant.
The Holy Spirit takes his time with others who learn to wait with patience for that same new heart, new mind, new voice, and new spirit.
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.“ ~ John 3:8
Paul understood that the timing is in God’s hands when Agrippa asked him if in a short time he would persuade him to be a Christian. Paul replied, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.” ~ Acts 26:28-29
The Holy Spirit works on you from the inside out on behalf of the Trinity. It’s no use just trying to make outward changes. Real renewal starts in your thoughts and works its way out to your actions.
He is active and the fruit he brings into the lives of his people are active: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control; against such things there is no law.“ ~ Galatians 5:22-23
Will you wait with patience for his wonderful, clear, comforting rule over your life?
You are strengthened by God’s secret presence as you wait with patience through trials and temptations.
What is the best gift you could ask for or receive? God, the Holy Spirit, who transforms you for your good and his glory.
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” ~ Luke 11:13
The Holy Spirit is preparing you to receive the Father and the Son to live within you when Jesus returns to take you to the home he has been preparing for you. Just as Jesus asked for in John 17, his people, the body of Christ, will be truly one with the triune God.
Jesus waited dead in the grave Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening, and rose from the dead on Sunday morning.
You can take heart since Jesus has overcome the world that you might follow him through death to eternal life.
“Into Your hand my spirit I now entrust to You;Because You have redeemed me, LORD God whose word is true.” ~ Psalm 31:5
The triune God teaches you to wait with patience until he comes for all who eagerly wait for him and love him. You will never be bored under his tutelage.
“And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” ~ Jeremiah 31:34
Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love…when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” ~ John 15:9, 26
“So then, be strong and steadfast, And let your heart be brave;All you who wait with patience, Wait on the LORD to save.” ~ Psalm 31:24
April 8-14, 2023
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