“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear, and will trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:1-3).

It is a relief to know that “waiting” is normal, and even a righteous man like David had to be patient about seeing the way things turned out in his life. But why do we have to wait? “Why (do we need to wait?) Because the Lord is inept? Because He is remote, and I should convert to Deism? No, because He respects His own creation and is interested in me as a person. God wants to teach me faith, not zap me with it. There is waiting because God wants a relationship with you…” (“Psalm 40”, Seu, www.worldmag.com).

  • But what kind of waiting is it? Is it pacing back and forth? Is it nervous, angry, or “making everyone uncomfortable” king of waiting? The writer qualifies his waiting with the word “patiently”. After all, love is “patient” (1 Corinthians 13:4), it is by patience that we inherit great promises (Hebrews 6:12-15), and it is a fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). Patience reminds me to ignore the devil’s lies about why God sometimes delays the fulfillment of my prayers (Psalm 37:7, Philippians 4:19, 2 timothy 4:18).

“He brought me up out of the pit…” The “pit” is often the trap that is set for us by the devil, the one we usually walk right in to. Yet the great news for “pit-dwellers” is that God wants us out of it! It was never His desire for us to live in the pit – downtrodden, discouraged, meager – but to live abundantly (John 10:10). The miry clay is a place where you cannot seem to get your footing, or where you never feel like you are making progress. In a book called Get Out of That Pit, by Beth Moore, some suggestions are offered for how to escape:

  • There are no lost causes, no permanent pit-dwellers except those who refuse to leave. “You don’t have to stay there, even if you’ve been there your whole life”
  • “Frequent pit-visiting has a way of turning into pit-living. The earlier we enter the pit or the longer we stay there, the more it feels like home. We start hanging our pictures on the wall, tidying up the place, and making ourselves comfortable. We invite others over to visit us in the pit, and sometimes they feel sufficiently enough at home to unpack their bags”.
  • “Don’t let anybody – particularly someone touting a twisted doctrine of grace – talk you into thinking you can’t be liberated from willful sin and blatant rebellion just because he or she hasn’t been. I know for a fact (1 Corinthians 6:11) that you can be completely set free from every sin that rules over you”.

“How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts toward us; there is none to compare Thee; If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count” (Psalm 40:4-5).

Like so many of us, David seems to have been burned by others. Many things had disappointed him – his own youth, strength, money, attraction, his family members, his children, his king – but what he could always depend on was God. He had decided in advance that his trust was in God alone as a lasting solution to the problems surrounding him. We must be careful to make a similarly determined effort to trust God. When disaster strikes suddenly, there may not be time to deliberate. It is when things are relatively calm that I must place my trust in God, so that I know in advance that I will turn to him if I lose my job, my health, or a loved one.

“And His thoughts are toward us.” – “When I was a parent of young children, I thought I knew what biblical parenting was: feed them, shelter them, teach them, discipline them. Years later I realized I missed one or two… One was: delight in them. The other; think thoughts toward them, stay up nights trying to figure out creative ways to build them up, bless them, encourage them, help them in their weakness, make them all they can be. God has these thoughts toward you. Isn’t that wonderful? Did you worry that your little problems were unimportant, and that God had other fish to fry?” (Seu)

“I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hidden Thy righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation” (Psalm 40:10).

We all face that moment when we can either speak or stay silent on the subject of God – when we may appear as acutely Christian or unbelieving as we please. I admire the way that David is unashamed of his relationship with the Almighty, similar to what Paul said about the Gospel in Romans 1:16. Perhaps why these two were so blatant about their faith was because they had seen it work so many times, in so many people.

We of the saved, though, try to cop out of speaking for Christ because of an “I’ve got mine” sort of attitude. “In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune” (Job 12:5). When we are comfortable and confident, we sometimes allow that to cloud our willingness to help others. So often, we conceal God’s lovingkindness from the great congregation because we are afraid, snobby, proud, or a little of each. Let us retain the sensitivity and zeal that we once had for the faith, and not hide the glad tidings (Gospel). Behold, I should not restrain my lips!

“Thou, O Lord, wilt not withhold Thy compassion from me; Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth will continually preserve me” (Psalm 40:11).

Observe the way David speaks to God, thanking Him in advance for future protection and faithfulness. I can say that my prayers usually involve more “please” than “thanks”: “Please do not withhold your compassion and please preserve me with lovingkindness and truth.” But the writer prays with such confidence, as if there is no doubt about the outcome of his petitions. Do our prayers express our doubts and complaints, or our gratitude and confidence in Him as the Great Deliverer?

“Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; make haste, O Lord, to help me. Let those be ashamed and humiliated together who seek my life to destroy it; let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha! Aha!” (Psalm 40:13-15).

  • There is a strong sense of dependence in this verse, an almost child-like faith in the ability of God to deliver. I must come to grips with the reality that I cannot be self-sufficient, I cannot hold out forever.
  • “I am glad to learn from this psalm that it is important to be willing to ‘wait patiently’ for his answers, but also that I may be bold enough to ask the Lord to ‘make haste.’ The psalmist has waited patiently in past troubles, and has found that God comes through… If God can do it once, He can do it twice – and a thousand times. And it is the memory of past deliverances that helps us to hang in there with present afflictions. But we can never have those empowering memories unless we begin now to walk in faith in present troubles” (Seu).
  • It is beyond me why the Lord tarries in answering prayers. But one thing becomes very evident: God wants us to be habitual prayers. Immediate answers and short-term solutions do not produce patience, diligence, and maturity, but a “God is my personal valet” mentality. You cannot deny that we hardly remember requests that are granted too quickly. It is in our long-suffering, our patience, that we become stronger (James 1:2-4). 

“Who say to me, ‘Aha! Aha!’” These are the people watching and waiting for us to fail. They have their questions, dilemmas, and hypothetical situations loaded and cocked. They are the ones who cannot wait to say, “Gotcha!” when we slip up. They are the ones who believe organized religion is full of hypocrites and wait eagerly to be proven right. Jesus was well-acquainted with the “Aha!” game. His enemies would catch Him healing a man on the Sabbath, and say, “Gotcha!” They would see His disciples eating in a field of grain and say, “Gotcha!” They would concoct improbable scenarios about seven-times married women going to heaven and meeting their exes, and they would cry out, “Gotcha!” if given the chance.

One would think the devil would be tired of this game, since he has failed at catching God for ages. Yet we perpetuate the problem by treating each other the same way. Instead of trying to make our own marriages better, we prefer pointing out the flaws in other people’s relationships. Rather than taking responsibility for our children, we wait to see the failures of other parents. Instead of measuring morality by God’s standard, we try to “grade on a curve” by arguing that those who judge us are no better than ourselves.

“Let all who seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee; Let those who love Thy salvation say continually, ‘The Lord be magnified!’ Since I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me; Thou art my help and my deliverer; Do not delay, O my God” (Psalm 40:16-17).

We cannot extract ourselves from the pit. We may find temporary earthly solutions, but nobody can offer an eternal answer for the troubles of this life except God. For those who want to delight in His salvation, it is time to stop making excuses, time to stop being self-sufficient. God will come without delay, if we will only let Him in!