“Where is this God of yours?” —Why am I so discouraged? Why so sad?—I hate my life. I do not want to go on living. Oh, leave me alone for these few remaining days.
I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again–my Saviour and my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember your kindness…through each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. —He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? —We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us–one gracious blessing after another.
Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. —Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.—He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy!
Ps.42:3NLT; Job 7:16NLT; Ps.42:5,6,8NLT; Rom 8:32 ESV; Jn.1:16:NLT; Ps.27:14 KJV; Ps.25:5 KJV; Ps.25:5 ESV; Ps.40:1-3 NLT; Job.8:21 NLT
For all the wrong-headedness of Job’s friends, Bildad got this one right. Though he misjudged Job he did manage to point him to hope based on the nature of God–He will surely not reject a person of integrity nor will he leave the evildoer unpunished. We cannot always know WHY we suffer or WHY we seem to wait interminably for relief, but we can know the character of God. Here we can place our hope when life is at its bleakest.
I was intrigued to see that the sense of this word ‘WAIT’ as the psalmist uses it implies an eager looking forward, a hope and expectancy for what’s to come. This is no impatient twiddling of thumbs kind of waiting, but an eager watching to see what God is doing and will do. It’s a wait of faith, buoyed up by the evidences we have already seen of His love–I will remember your kindness. Whether you find yourself in a crucible of waiting or in an open pasture of plenty today, these are words to store up and dwell on. They are foundation pieces for a tenacious hope that makes God’s goodness palpable to those who see the way you smile in the waiting rooms of life.
–LS