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How long? ...
Wednesday, April 2, 2014. Have you ever thought about why there are such long times of waiting in the biblical stories? When the people of Israel are in Egypt in slavery, they have to wait for 400 years until Mose is called to save them. When they walk through the desert, it is 40 years until they are allowed to enter the Holy Land. What is going on?
What does waiting mean? …
What are times of waiting good for? Are they there just to test our ability to bear suffering? What is going on when we have to wait and endure in a situation which is non-pleasant? What is going on in us when we suffer and things do not change or even become worse?
Let us talk about one possible route first: the route to give up faith. When you suffer and nothing changes, you might just come to the conclusion: there is no God. Or, if you still think that there is a God, you might come to the conclusion that God does not love you and that he does not want good things for you. You might suffer because you blame your suffering on your own sin, on your behaviour, on your missing value or missing dignity. You might go the way of unbelief! It is a way of destruction.
What is the alternative to disbelief. It is the way of faith. Even if your misery does not change immediately, God is there. He is there in the middle of your trouble. He does care! He wants to be there and teach you. He wants to be there with you and go through all your challenges. He still loves you and he will always love you, he is the Lord!
Biblical Waiting Psalm …
There are many templates of waiting in the biblical books. There are times of waiting, which are times of learning. They are times to strip all things down to the essentials of life. They are times to test your faith, to purify it, to let you come fully and without doubt to the conclusion: the Lord is the master of all what is - he and no one else. Let us read Psalm 13:
1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, 4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. 5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
The author of the psalm is still in trouble. He has not yet seen salvation. But he comes to a conclusion which resembles the state where salvation is already there. He does not doubt any more, that God will help, and that God will light up his eyes. He is already seeing his joy and his songs, which come with the help of the Lord. It is a typical and important process, to come to praise even in the middle of trouble, since God WILL help, and knowing that he will not let us down is fantastic, if it reaches our heart! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts