Worship as Wait Training
Before We Gather by Zach Hicks
| Scripture
Read Psalm 62
| Devotion
Ambrose, a leader in the early church, is well known for calling the book of Psalms a “complete gymnasium for the soul.” And for good reason. To live in the psalms – to read them, meditate on them, pray them-gives us the kind of workout that exercises all the major muscle groups of our souls. And because Psalms is a collection of worship songs specifically put together for the corporate worship of the people of God, we can say by extension that worship services should also be soul gyms for our minds, hearts, and emotions.
A particular spiritual muscle has atrophied significantly in our culture. It’s the muscle of waiting. I recently caught myself having a micro-tantrum when I attempted to return an item I purchased online and received an automated response that someone would get back to me within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. “Forty-eight hours?” I thought. “Who waits forty-eight hours?” My hyperventilation gave way to repentance when I realized that my fast-paced, plugged-in lifestyle had conditioned me out of any ability to sit and wait.
Many of us no longer have much ability to slow down, to listen, to attend, to quiet our spirits. Push notifications and the “google- ability” of everything offer little opportunity for us to exercise our waiting muscles. As a result, we’ve become anemic and a bit fragile. Every small gust of suffering that blows in our direction topples us over. Our pain threshold has become very low. We lack the endurance to brace ourselves and trust when answers don’t come quickly or when deliverance isn’t instantaneous.
Psalm 62 is all about waiting in the midst of suffering. The psalmist feels under attack, unjustly cornered, and beaten down (vv. 3-4). Toward the end of the psalm, some liabilities of impatience are exposed as the weary psalmist warns against extortion, robbery, and setting our hearts on riches (v. 10). Weak waiting muscles often make us flee to other safeties-vain attempts to self-therapize away the discomfort, exposure, and vulnerability we feel in the waiting. We seek refuge in wealth, or security in extracting what we think we can get from others.
As a worship song, Psalm 62 teaches us that our weekly gathering is a context for countercultural “wait training.” It’s a place of pausing where we can cut ourselves off from our devices for an hour or so. It’s a place of quiet where we can wait in silence. It’s a place of praise that helps us remember we worship a God big enough to trust. It’s a place of relief where we release control of our schedules, our emotions, and our lives. It’s a place of surrender where we submit to letting God and his Word do the leading. It’s a place of hope where we are repointed to the promised coming of the King and his kingdom.
Worship also, as it proclaims the gospel of Jesus, mirrors Psalm 62’s emphasis on the singularity, the “aloneness,” of the object of our waiting. What are we waiting for? The psalm answers, “For God alone my soul waits….He alone is my rock” (vv. 1-2). So as we proclaim and rehearse the gospel that Jesus alone is our hope and that our best efforts are filthy rags, we exercise the muscles of releasing control, letting go, practicing patience, and embracing dependency. We learn that trust and patience are closely related: because God is faithful (trust), I can wait (patience).
Perhaps today you or your brothers and sisters are coming to worship with unanswered prayers and questions. Maybe some- one got a diagnosis late last week, but the follow-up got pushed to later this week. Maybe a young wife is struggling with infertility, or a single man just wants to be married and start a family. Maybe someone has been job hunting for way too long. Maybe a couple is waiting for their marriage to heal. Maybe someone with a disability or chronic illness is at the end of their rope. Pray that today’s worship service would be a place where all these kinds of waiting can find a God big enough to trust, loving enough to lean on, and mighty enough to deliver. Pray that the muscles of waiting would find opportunities to stretch and flex. Pray that the elements of worship train people in the exercise of hope.
| Prayer
Aim your prayers in this direction:
- Pray that the worship service today would be a training ground for brothers and sisters who need to grow in waiting on the Lord.
- Pray especially for those whose waiting may be reaching a breaking point, that the service might be God’s vehicle to relieve them from their burdens, strengthen them by bearing their burdens with them, or fortify them with fresh patience to press on in faithfulness.
- Pray that people would give themselves over to full hearted, full-bodied participation in all the elements of worship for the sake of maximizing their training and formation into the likeness of Jesus.
- Pray that the gospel would be so clear and powerful that waiting gets transformed from fearful uncertainty to confident dependence.