The Healing in the Waiting

Ryan Abernathy

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Psalm 130:title–8

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When we were in Colorado last week, we did a fair amount of hiking. The whole fam, all 10 of us, did a medium difficulty trail called Uranium Mine. We were able to complete it with my 3 year old niece in tow. But Annalise and I had talked to my brother in law about the Fish Creek Falls hike we had done last year. The views from the top are stunning and the hike itself had been hard, but fun. Lots of cool scenery, changes in terrain, and opportunities to see some amazing views of the valley below.

What we hadn’t counted on had been how a year can affect the body- particularly one that had been subjected to COVID. Quite frankly, where we had completed the hike as a family the year before- yes with Livy as well- this year we were far more challenged, and had to do something we thought we would not have to do without the less committed hikers in our midst. We had to stop and rest.

We had to wait, in order to be able to make it to the pay off.

That started me thinking about how I am with the Lord. And truthfully, that wasn’t the only thing on this trip that made me think about waiting.

I go 90 to nothing most of the time. My job is busy. And when I am done with my job, there is aways church work to be done. And our family is busy- between school and part time jobs for the girls, and Amanda’s teaching job, we are always on the go. In fact, the first 2 days of vacation I was actually anxious, restless because I felt like I should be working, doing something.

And yet I could hear God saying, you need to wait. Slow down. Be still. This is not a time to press forward or be working. It is a time for your soul. I am trying to give you a respite, but also to help you discover, or recover, a new rhythm.

With that in mind, turn with me to Psalm 130.

(Read psalm)

Let’s start with just the first 2 verses. Some of us go all the time and that is what has us in the depths. The idea of stopping never occurs to us. We would be ashamed to ask for mercy. We would see ourselves as weak- and we carry ourselves that way. We delight in telling others how busy we are and turn up our noses at those who seem to always have leisure- or who don’t always have a full calendar.

Psalms 73–150 1. Invocation and Complaint (130:1)

The depths (maʿămaqqîm) is an image of dangerous waters (cf. Ps 69:2[3]) that pictures chaos or overwhelming disaster

But others of us, we stay busy for another reason- we don’t want to face what is really going on. We cover our grief, our anger, our sadness, our sins…whatever we don’t want to deal with in the moment, with the busy. And we are drowning.

And in those depths, when it all comes crashing down, we cry out to God for mercy.

Psalms 73–150 1. Invocation and Complaint (130:1)

The psalmist was not a cynic, nor had he given up on his relationship with God. On the contrary, he was convinced that his ties to God were so firm that he could call on God for help in the hour of deepest need, when he was at the lowest ebb of human experience.”

And God lays those things bare thru the psalmist in the next couple of verses- the depths we are crying out from, those pits are lined with iniquities- sins- and they are probably not the sins you think of. Sometimes they are- trying to numb the pain we are dealing with thru chemical means…or other numbing processes, but the truth is, the sins we see in these depths are often cloaked in pseudo-righteouness. We press in in busyness saying we are helping others or even serving the Lord, when our intent is to not deal with the reality- and the “work” becomes the false savior that leaves us in the pit.

Psalms 73–150 1. Invocation and Complaint (130:1)

As Jonah indicated in a similar situation (Jonah 2:3–7), the psalmist in his sin feels as though he is going down for the third time because of his sin and his resultant guilt before the Lord

The plea here from the psalmist to the Lord is one of supplication- dependence. Realizing that the writer is in a situation that requires deliverance- there is nothing the psalmist can DO to fix the situation. The writer has to wholly depend on the Lord in this moment.

Psalms 73–150 2. Petition (130:2–4)

be gracious, show favor,” envisions the psalmist begging for the Lord’s gracious response. It is a deep cry from the heart, born of strong emotion. His faith in the Lord directed his feelings to him, for the psalmist realized that even in the depths he was not too far down for the Lord to hear his prayer

And that moment of realization is followed by another one- God does not HAVE to deliver. He could leave us to the consequences of our actions. But He instead shows us grace- He reaches out to us because He loves us in our sin and failure and our vain attempts to “fix” what we see as our situation in life.

Psalms 73–150 2. Petition (130:2–4)

The psalmist acknowledges that what humans cannot earn by merit (vv. 1–3), the Lord offers by his grace. By his forgiveness, the Lord proves himself more powerful than sin. His grace, however, should not cause us to think less of him, but it is intended to cause us to respect him. Kraus notes, “To fear Yahweh means to wait for his word of forgiveness, in straining attentiveness to look forward to the moment in which Yahweh grants [forgiveness]. In impressive clearness the psalm unveils the human being’s bearing in view of the free grace of God

That’s the way I felt after about a mile and about 600 feet of elevation change. Done in. And frustrated. I had DONE this before! And with a 5 year old! What in the world was wrong with me!?! I was at the END of myself.

And in that moment I began to really take stock- what had I stopped doing since last year? Where had I left healthy physical behaviors? And that’s how so many of us wind up in the situations we are in- we have left behind the things we do to stay connected to Jesus, and replaced them with other efforts that feel good in the moment, but ultimately leave us stuck on the side of the mountain halfway between the safety of the base and the victory at the top.

But it wasn’t until after the mountain, that I was able to really see the root cause. What I had endured in December had marked me physically…just like the root issue of what we are dealing with spiritually has marked us in the present!

Look at verse 5-6

Verse 5 says we wait…which can also mean to remain in one place, or linger.

When we are in the depths, the natural tendency is to try and get out. To make our own way. No one wants to linger in the depths. We want this over quickly, and as painlessly as possible. But God says to wait.

Why?

We are waiting for real deliverance. For God to do something only He can do. To make a way where there seems to be no way. To achieve the impossible. To have morning dawn, even in the depths.

Psalms 73–150 3. Confession of Trust (130:5–6)

the psalmist emphasizes that the Lord’s faithfulness inspires hope in him. This is not a tepid, half-hearted trust, but the psalmist is all in for the Lord as he completely places himself and his need into the Lord’s hands. The repetition in lines b and c suggests a strong sense of expectancy, as he waits for the Lord’s word of forgiveness (cf. v. 4), trusting that the Lord will respond graciously to his supplication. His waiting necessarily involves listening; the psalmist has cried out of the depths to the Lord, and now he is silent before the Lord as he anticipates the divine reply.

Verse 6 says we wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning- and it repeats it 2x. What did morning mean for the watchmen? That safety was arriving. No enemy attack had come in the night and they could once again see clearly, if anyone approached from far away. Vision returns!

When we are in the depths we lose our vision- and with the loss of vision comes the loss of hope! And God doesn’t take away our hope- He reminds us of it in His Word! When we are in the depths, the deliverance is not in our own power or effort or busyness or overcoming, it is in the revealed Word of God- the Person and Work of Jesus. He is our HOPE!

And what dawns in the depths is a view that can only be achieved by waiting on the Lord and being healed by Him.

Look at verse 7-8

God brings “steadfast love” better translated as kindness- when we are in the depths, God longs to be kind to us- even when we are in the depths, God desires to show us how kind He is- but we cannot receive kindness if we are too busy acting to receive it- we have to stop-

God redeems us- and it is not just any redemption- it is ABUNDANT! It is more than we could have asked for or done for ourselves. God can more fully heal and restore you than all the false saviors you can concoct or envision (Gospel presentation here)

Psalms 73–150 4. Exhortation (130:7–8)

Because no fault is too great for the Lord’s forgiveness, there is always hope due to the divine pattern of redemption. As Ross notes, “Every experience of forgiveness is a foreshadowing of the final redemption from sin and everything connected to it.”

Finally, God removes from us, in this redemption, the longing for a false savior and replaces it with Himself- a true Savior. We no longer look to sin to make us feel better, we are restored in Him.

Psalms 73–150 Response

the psalmist in Psalm 130 shows how sinners like himself can move from the depths of their guilt to the delights of God’s grace. Attempts to relieve guilt by activity, possessions, achievements, positive thoughts, and denial are as ineffective as taking aspirin to heal a tumor because while they may address the symptoms, they cannot cure the disease. The good news of Psalm 130 is that when sinners cry out to God in the night of their guilt, he is gracious in forgiving them. Their hope is not in their merit before the Lord but in the Lord’s unmerited mercy to them.

And what we find in the waiting, is the strength to get back on the path and to see things we would never have imagined in the depths.

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