Psalm 119:145 – Answer Me
I cried out with all my heart.
Answer me, LORD!
I will observe your statutes.
If you have spent any time in prayer, you have likely spent time wondering if an answer was coming, and if it was coming, when would that be.
This is not just our experience in prayer, but our experience in almost any relationship. The time between a request and response seems very long.
I suspect this is inevitable. Everything takes time, but we like to see results immediately. Waiting in line is difficult for us. We wonder why the line doesn’t move faster, or why the store doesn’t take action to open more checkout stations.
Near my home there is a railroad track that leads into a nearby chemical factory. Frequently we have trains going in and out of the plant, often adding more loaded cars over a period of time. As a result, one can wait quite a long time for these trains to get out of the way. Traffic can line up for a long ways down the road on either side.
I am not so patient. I’ll frequently take a detour around the train, crossing the track some ways away. Sometimes this gets me to my destination faster, but frequently by the time I’ve completed my detour, I find that the traffic has dissipated, and I took longer getting around the delay than I would have taken just living through it.
There’s this natural desire to make things happen if they aren’t happening. We’d like everything to work on our timetable. But when we’re waiting on God and going on our own detour it’s possible that, like I do with the train, we might miss what’s going on because we’re so busy working our way around. We are seeming to accomplish things when we’re just occupying time on detours.
With the psalmist, we cry out with our whole heart. We ask for an answer. We promise God our obedience, our observance, our careful attention. But it’s easy to play busy, rather than to wait.
There are times to be busy. We don’t want to miss those. But there are also times to watch and wait, to look to the Lord for the answer. Like Habakkuk (2:1), we need to climb up on the watchtower, stand guard, and wait to see what the Lord says.
Can you manage to wait for God today?
