SHHHHH

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).

Those are the words with which David concludes his Psalm.  He has described an enemy that is dead-set on “devour[ing] my flesh.”  His enemy is not just one but an army.  Reason to fear, trouble and violence have become his normal.  He is so accustomed to the feelings that a child must feel when rejected by his own parents that he actually asks God not to do the same to him. 

How wounded must one be to feel like God too would hurt you if you do not ask that he not?  How forgotten one must feel that he must remind himself that God would never forget him?  How many lies must be told about a person that he actually is tempted to believe the lie that God would turn you over to your foes?  Whatever it requires, David was there.  As one reads Psalm 27, you can feel his desperate attempt to convince himself that God and not his enemies will have the last say.  You can almost see his turmoil.  You can smell his fear.  You can see him clinging to what might be his last strand of faith. 

And then suddenly…abruptly…he ends the Psalm at verse 14:  “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”  In that one verse not only does the Psalm end, but so does his struggle.  The whole Psalm, he has went back and forth between fear and faith, hope and despair, truth and lies, but suddenly the inner storm ceases.  The wind dies down, the rain stops and dark clouds give way to rays of sun light.  There is no longer need to run for cover because a place of calm has been found.

When our children were babies and they would be fighting the rest they needed, I would often hold them close and simply repeat not a word, but a sound, “SHHHHHHH…”  It’s as though while David is pacing the floor in anguish, the Father puts his hand on his shoulder and says, “SHHHH!” He has been looking for thunder; he’s been asking for a sign; he’s been begging for deliverance, when what he really needed was, “SHHHH.” It’s amazing what we can hear when we “SHHHH.” 

“Oh, I see, Lord,” you can hear David say.  “You are right.  I am frantically searching for hope and peace and it won’t be found there. What I need to do is quit looking for you and wait for you.” 

Wait…I don’t like to wait…I never pick the longest line in the grocery store and I get frustrated when the short line I pick ends up taking longer than the long line I avoided…I don’t like to wait.  Waiting feels like a waste of time.  Waiting does not come natural to me.  I think David might have felt the same way about waiting, too. 

But when you have paced the floors all night long and realized you’ve made it no farther than where you started, you might just then be ready to hear God say, “Wait for me.”  It’s not just any kind of waiting.  It’s a specific kind—“Wait for the Lord.”  This waiting is not idle, but active.  But by active it does not mean busy, but focused.  Like a child looking out the window for the car of his Grandma and Grandpa to arrive, so we wait for the Lord…looking and longing for God to show up where we need him most.  It is in this place of waiting for the Lord that David says one can “be strong and take heart.” 

This is one of the important themes of Lent—learning to wait.  As I give something up these 40 days, I am asking God to teach me to wait for him all over again.  As I crave what is being denied, I pray for God to make me long for him even more.  And in this waiting, there really is a strength and heart-renewal that can be found no place else.  I have no problem admitting that I especially need his presence in my life right now.  I don’t have a chance without his nearness.  I can’t make it…O…wait a minute…I’m sorry…I have to go, you see…what’s that, Father?  SHHHHHHH….