Psalm 40
I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the Lord.
When you first read verse one, it can seem to contradict itself. He waited patiently and he cried. When I think of someone who is asking for something yet doesn’t receive it immediately and begins to cry, my first adjective isn’t patience. Yet that is what David wrote. I believe he truly waited patiently on the Lord, yet inwardly he was crying out for the breakthrough. His daily walk showed that he trusted fully in the Lord for his prayers to be answered. But his prayers were filled with cries from his heart for breakthrough.
What do our lives say to others when we are going through trials? Are we outwardly showing that we are trusting in God while we are inwardly crying out to the Lord for help? I don’t know exactly what David was going through. Maybe he was running from Saul, or Absolom, or maybe he was in Hebron and he knew the word from the Lord was for him to be king in Jerusalem. Regardless if we are in the midst of a battle for our lives or we have a promise from our Lord we aren’t seeing come to pass, what is our message to those around us? What if your trial is really an evangelism tool for God to reach those around you by your example of trust in a faithful God?
