Kaph

How many of us can relate to this passage? We long to be saved from the situation we face. In fact, we ache for the Father to intervene. We pray. We wait. We cry. We pray more. And like this psalmist, our eyes grow heavy looking, watching, straining to see some sort of sign that God is there, that He’s working, that He has a plan and will step in soon.

I would think Abraham and Sarah felt the same way about the child they were promised. They waited at least 25 years. Joseph, also, must have wondered what God was doing as he was a slave and a prisoner for what we would call the prime years of his life.

Moses waited 40 years while he shepherded sheep before he received an assignment at the age of 80. We cannot forget David’s time of affliction and waiting, while he was being chased by Saul. Years of a king desiring to take David’s life, without reason.

Even as I think of these individuals and type these words, I’m ashamed of my own impatience around what I would call an affliction of God. It’s only been one year that we’ve been praying, asking, longing, and waiting for God to act! These men and their families waited far, far longer!

Scripture gives us example after example of times when God’s people waited to be rescued, when they were wrongly accused, when their lives were in danger, when they were being mistreated. And, through His Word, God graciously shares the next part of the story with us, when, after looking, longing, and straining to see God work, these men and women saw God intervene. When God knew the time was right, when He knew they had learned what He needed them to learn to do the task He had planned for them to do, when the Potter knew the clay was right where He needed it to be to accomplish His purposes, for His glory, He intervened.

The challenge that rises like yeast for me from this portion of Psalm 119 is related to five verses. In spite of the waiting or maybe it’s better to say in the midst of the waiting, the psalmist still expected God to act. In Verse 81, the psalmist said, “I’m waiting for Your Word of hope.” In verse 83, he said, “I keep a steady gaze on the instructions you post.” In Verse 86, the psalmist said, “Everything you command is a sure thing.” And, in verse 87, “I have not relaxed my grip on your counsel.”

The psalmist still expected God to act because He knew His Father. He knew he could trust Him.

He knew God was faithful. His experience had taught him that he could trust the God of the universe in any situation. In God’s perfect time, the Psalmist knew He would intervene which is why he closed the psalm with this statement: “In your great love revive me”. And he did not say this for selfish gain, or so life would be easier, or so he could just get on with what was ahead for him, but so, he could “alertly obey God’s every word”, according to verse 88. Wow! There’s our lesson, shepherd leader. We must do as the writer of this song did, while longing, still hope. While questioning, still wait. And, while trusting, still expect reviving.

David Dickson, a 16^th century minister and Professor of Theology once said, “It is good in all times of persecution or affliction to have an eye both on the promises and on the precepts; for the looking to the promises does encourage to hope, and the eyeing of the precepts does prove the hope to be sound.”

Fellow shepherd leader, fellow influencer in the church, in your family, in your workplace, and in your community others are looking to you to see how you react in difficult times, in both the large and the small afflictions of life. Therefore, you must, we must, exhibit hope, faith, confidence in the Father, a willingness to wait for the perfect timing of the Perfect One, and an expectation of refreshment, of revitalization, and of recovery.

Where do you need to finetune in this area so that you will shepherd well this week? Thanks so much for joining me. May you be blessed in your shepherding journey.