Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!  Psalm 27:14, NKJV

Waiting is never fun, but it's an unavoidable part of our human experience.  When we wait for delayed shipments, long drive-thru lines, or siblings occupying the shower in the morning, it can sometimes feel unbearable.  But when we feel like we're waiting on God for an answered prayer or long-awaited change of circumstance, it can try our patience and, even worse, can cause us to question God's goodness.  As we discovered in last week's sermon, Zacharias was someone who lived a life of steady faithfulness even while his decades-long prayer for his wife and a growing family had not yet been answered.  Waiting on God didn't cause him to waver in his service for God.  David also knew a thing or two about waiting on the Lord.  Anointed as Israel's next king in his teenage years, David experienced the tension between knowing God's promise and seeing the fulfillment of it in his life.  So when David urges us to "wait on the Lord" in Psalm 27:14, what does that really require of us?

COLLECTING CHAOS

Wait on the Lord... Psalm 27:14a, NKJV

The Hebrew term translated as "wait" (qavah) in this verse is a word that points to expectation and hope.  It's the exercise of patience involved as we look for an expectation to be fulfilled.  Interestingly, the very first appearance of this verb in Scripture is found in the Creation account of Genesis 1 to describe the chaotic waters of the deep being "gathered" (qavah) into one place so dry land can appear (Gen. 1:9).  The imagery behind the verb, then, depicts the idea of being bound together, held together, collected from chaos at the command of Yahweh so that new life can eventually appear.  Waiting isn't usually a welcomed activity, especially when it comes to the expectations we have in God or the prayers we surrender to His divine will.  But when the Bible calls us to wait, it's more than an invitation to patiently endure until the time of God's intervention.  

It's actually an invitation to gather the chaos of our anxiety under the control of His sovereignty so that new life can be born.

DOUBLING DOWN

Wait on the Lord...Wait, I say, on the Lord!  Psalm 27:14

David's pen hasn't slipped.  The command to wait is repeated twice not as a scribal error but as point of emphasis, i.e. it's doubly important.  In light of the previous verses, David is expressing a conviction that he will certainly see the goodness of God in this life, even if his real-time circumstances are not always pleasant or convenient (cf. Ps. 27:11-13).  David isn't highlighting what God might do, but what He most definitely will do.  God WILL demonstrate His goodness in the midst of our brokenness and seemingly unanswered prayers.  Therefore, wait on the Lord!  David declares it twice because he means it in two ways -- in direction and duration.  Regarding direction, it's a call to let all our waiting/hoping/expecting be focused on God alone.  Regarding duration, it's a call to let that waiting/hoping/expecting endure as long as it takes.  

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT

Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord! Psalm 27:14, NKJV

Waiting on God for as long as it takes isn't an easy task.  That's why David inserts another exhortation between the two commands to wait:  be of good courage.  This is the kind of call we hear God extending toward Joshua before doing the hard thing of possessing the Promised Land, the kind of war cry a commander gives to an army on the verge of battle.  When we lay before God our fervent prayers that only He hears, and when answers petitions don't come right away, our waiting will involve a struggle to trust and remain confident in God's faithfulness.  The kind of struggle that falls under what Paul calls "the good fight of faith" (1 Tim. 6:12).  Waiting on the Lord can be a heavy burden, but it will always bring about heavenly blessings.

During the Christmas season, we get to reflect on the God who satisfies the longings of a sinful world through the arrival of Jesus.  The world waited, and God sent His Son right on time, "in the fullness of time" (Gal. 4:4).  When it comes to the personal burdens we're praying about, let's find hope and courage to keep waiting on the Lord.  The God who sent His Son to this earth in the fullness of time will surely supply all our needs right on time.

🙏🏼 PRAYER 

Lord, I surrender to you the deep longings of my soul.  Please gather the chaos of my anxiety under the control of Your mighty hand today.  Strengthen my heart to keep waiting on You.  Go ahead and provide the answers I need, not just the answers that I want.  And as a result, let me be part of encouraging others to keep waiting on You too.