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Friday, January 9

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation;
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

—Psalm 62:1-2

Waiting is universal. Old and young, rich and poor, sick and well, we all wait. Each day we wait for seemingly trivial things: for coffee to perk, for a traffic light to change, for a grocery store check out line to get shorter, for a school or workday to end. And then there are things that don't seem trivial at all: for the result of a medical test, for a phone call from a loved one, for the birth of a baby.

What kind of "waiter" are you? Are you, like me, impatient and irritated when there are delays? (I can't even wait patiently for my computer to do what I want it to do!)  The Psalmist gives me a sobering lesson: "for God alone my soul in silence waits; from God comes my salvation." The Psalmist knows instinctively what I need to know deep in my bones: that to hold myself ready for God, and God alone, gives me the perspective I need. 

The irony is that when I consciously wait for God, when I focus deep within myself and ask for God's presence, I realize that God has been there all the time. God never leaves us; God simply waits for us to stop our fretting and fuming and awaken to the fact that God is with us. What joy and relief it is to deeply know this. When I do, I can join the Psalmist in saying, "God alone is my rock and my salvation; my fortress; I shall never be shaken."

Emmanuel, God with us, we thank you for your abiding presence. Help us to remember and know that you are closer to us than the breath we breathe, that you abide in us, and we in you. With the sure and certain knowledge that this is true, may we wait in an entirely new way, now and always. Amen.