The Soul that Waits on God

Psalm 130:1-8

Have you ever felt like you’re drowning? I have – literally. When I was a young boy, I nearly drowned in a hotel swimming pool. I remember sinking helplessly to the bottom and seeing the filtration air bubbles come up through the murky, chlorine water. I had nightmares about that experience for many years.

Jonah felt like he was drowning, too, before he was swallowed by a massive fish (read Jonah 2:1-7). He had sunk so far to the bottom of the sea that the seaweed surrounded his head.

Drowning was frightening imagery for Israelites because they were land-based people. Though some were fishermen who sailed boats on the Sea of Galilee, most remained exclusively on land. So, being submersed under water in the middle of the sea, was a terrifying idea in their minds.

To them, this concept of being submersed underwater represented in a poetic way any traumatic situation in which a person was overwhelmed by trouble, “out of their element,” unable to help themselves, and feeling as though they were near the end of life itself. To be “submerged” or “drowning” was to be “overwhelmed.”

Have you ever felt this way - overwhelmed? As though you were submerged deep below the ocean, unable to swim or make your way to safety – not in an actual ocean, but in the ocean of life? That’s what this psalm is about.

In this psalm, we see how a person who trusts in the Lord responds to the anxieties and troubles which flood his or her soul. No matter how overwhelming such trials may be, this person responds in a way that demonstrates genuine faith in God.

Key Thought: When anxiety overwhelms the soul, God’s people trust in him completely.

Though we don’t know who wrote this psalm, we know it was written as a “psalm of ascents,” meaning it was written for people in Israel to sing as they (a) journeyed up to Jerusalem from outlying cities and towns, (b) ascended up the hill of Jerusalem when they arrived at the city, or (c) watched the priests climb the stairs to the temple.

This particular psalm expresses the kind of response that a genuine follower of God should have when he or she experiences overwhelming pressures and problems in life. Another title for this message, in fact, could be “a biblical approach to anxiety.”

This psalm is arranged into eight verses, which form four connected units of two verses each. Let’s take a closer look at what each of these four sections teach us and then make some personal observations for our own lives today.

If you trust in the Lord, you will turn to him in times of trouble.

From the depths I call to you, Yahweh;

Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ear listen attentively

to the voice of my pleas for mercy.

The opening two verses record a call to the Lord for help by a person who was overwhelmed by “deep waters.” “From the depths” reveals that this person feels overwhelmed and submerged by difficult circumstances or pressures of some kind. They feel unable to solve their problems without outside intervention and believe that Yahweh, the one true God, is the only one to whom they can turn.

Perhaps these “deep waters” and the cause for anxiety was betrayal by friends, physical health problems, family problems, being marginalized or persecuted by society at large, financial troubles, a series of confusing, disappointing circumstances, or a lack of clear direction and purpose in life. We simply don’t know. We only know that this person was experiencing overwhelming anxiety for undisclosed reasons.

“I call to you” describes actual communication, an actual cry for help, indicating that this person is actually praying and speaking to God. He is not just thinking about God, feeling like he needs God, or wishing for God to help him. He is actually speaking to God.

“Lord, hear my voice!” indicates audible, vocal prayer – not just inner prayerful thoughts. Such vocal prayer reveals that this person truly believes he is interacting with God, speaking to him as though he is a real, divine person who is really there. It also means that he has set aside any social inhibitions, allowing his desire for God’s help to supersede any concerns he may have about what people may think of him for praying out loud.

“Hear” is a word that expresses a desire for God to not only hear the sounds of his voice but that he would also process what he is saying and respond with concrete action and intervention.

“Let your ear listen attentively” intensifies this desire for God’s undivided attention, asking God to listen carefully to everything that he is saying.

“My pleas” indicates that this person is praying and intends to pray to God about his troubles more than once, for this is not just one but many serious and intense moments of prayer. So, this was a recurring, repeated cry for help, not just a one-time thing.

From these opening verses, we see that a person who trusts in God expresses their trust in God through prayer, even in difficult times. But there is more.

If you trust in the Lord, you will acknowledge your personal failure.

If you keep a record of sins, Yahweh,

            Lord, who could stand?

Yet with you there is forgiveness,

            so that you may be revered.

In the next pair of verses, the psalm-writer expresses more than wholehearted, spoken trust in God. He goes further and does a hard and difficult thing – he takes personal responsibility for his own personal sins.

This is hard for us to do, not only because our own human nature and pride dislikes doing so but also because our society at large encourages the opposite. Our culture increasingly encourages a selfish mentality that refuses to take personal responsibility for our sins. If we don’t like a person’s tone, attitude, words, or behavior or if anyone treats us in any way which we deem as unfair, unjust, or unkind, we feel completely justified in labeling them a “toxic” person, which then enables us to dismiss that person entirely.

In this way, we have become masters at identifying flaws in other people, which we then use to justify our own wrong actions and to make excuses for our own difficulties and problems. But such an approach to life only incubates and enlarges our anxieties and magnifies our troubles because it ignores the greatest source of anxiety and trouble in our lives, the selfish, sinful soul within our own beings.

In this psalm, we learn a different and better approach – an approach which exhibits genuine faith in God and rejects blame-shifting and excuse-making. The first line of these verses acknowledges not just one but multiple personal sins. By doing so, this person that the anxiety which overwhelmed him may have been directly connected to his own personal failures and sins.

There is no blame-shifting here, no blaming circumstances, other people, or even God himself, but rather a taking personal responsibility. This person requests forgiveness from God rather than blaming him for problems. He admits that he has no justifiable or reliable defense before God – with the implication that he deserves to be in deep waters because of his many sins and failures before God. He is not the victim of circumstances and people but the victim of his own failures and sins.

“So that you may be revered” reminds us that God is the only one who can release a person from the record of his or her sins. This fact requires us to acknowledge him as God and to come to him with true honesty and humility. He does not allow us to dismiss our failures as little mistakes or understandings. He requires us to acknowledge our sins for what they are – disobedience to him and not just one but many.

“With you there is forgiveness” indicates that when we acknowledge our sins to God, he will forgive us. Can you sense the certainty here? God does not want us to come to him so that he can belittle us and ruin us; he wants us to come to him so he can forgive us and those who will turn to him in humility and honesty, taking personal responsibility for their sin, he will most certainly forgive.

To “forgive” means to pardon, to remove a person’s actual and felt guilt which results from their wrongdoing of some kind. Though an actual wrong has been committed and real guilt is the actual and appropriate position and feeling, God is able and willing to dismiss or release a person from that guilt – though fully deserved – if that person will honestly acknowledge that he or she has sinned.

So, from these opening four verses, we see that when anxiety floods a person’s soul, God’s people trust in him completely – especially for forgiveness from their sins. This kind of trust is further magnified in the next two verses.

If you trust in the Lord, you will wait patiently for his intervention.

I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits,

            and in his word, I wait expectantly –

my soul for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning –

            more than watchmen for the morning!

In this third section, the psalmist describes an attitude of confident expectation. In the moment, he is overwhelmed by anxiety, and he has acknowledged that much of his anxiety is a result of or compounded by his personal guilt for sin. Therefore, he deserves to experience trouble. But now that he has acknowledged his sins honestly before God, he believes that God will intervene and rescue him instead, rather than judge him.

“I wait for Yahweh” indicates that this person is focused on and trusting in God. Such trust is willing to wait over a long period of time and does not have other additional objects. In other words, the psalmist is not “trying out” God in an experimental way to see if things work out or adding God as one among other possible solutions. Such experimental or partial faith is not faith at all. Such faith waits until God intervenes no matter how long he or she must wait. He does not wait for a while and then back out. He

“My soul waits” indicates that he is focused on God from his innermost being. Such focus and trust is wholehearted and grows from a person’s deepest, innermost thoughts and affections. Such serious, wholehearted trust is not casual or occasional but is the core and foundation of a person’s true personal faith and approach to life. Such people are genuinely and seriously trusting in God and are not just saying that they do.

In particular, this person explains that he is trusting in Yahweh by trusting in his Word and he is relying on this word with total and complete confidence (“expectantly”). As I’ve mentioned before and as the psalms frequently acknowledge (Psa 1 onward), a person who does not meditate frequently on God’s Word can hardly say that he is trusting in God for God is not a nebulous being who makes his will known to us through abstract, subjective ways and impressions. He reveals himself and his purposes and will through his Word. That is how he has told us exactly what he wants us to know, believe, and do – through the written, inspired Scripture. This is why Paul wrote centuries later that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing [comes] by the Word of God” (Rom 10:17).

The psalmist concludes this third section with an illustration. He says that his confidence in God and his Word is more confident than when a nightwatchman waits and looks for the morning to come. What does this describe? It describes the kind of confidence that a person has in the sun rising anew each morning. Though the night may be dark and may drag on slowly for what seems to be ages, the sun will rise in the morning just like it always does – and so it is with God and his Word. Whatever God says he will do and a person who speaks to God and acknowledges his sins to God is able to trust in God with this very same, full confidence.

But when you do not turn to God and will not confess your sins to him, you wonder whether he will actually forgive you and you wonder whether he will actually intervene and come through for you in the end. You wonder this because you do not have a close and confident relationship with him. You are guilty of sin and will not come to him for forgiveness. You have more confidence in the sun rising in the morning than in God rescuing you from your problems, when your confidence in God should be greater than your confidence in the sunrise.

Of which are you more confident, that God is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do or that the sun will rise in the morning? For the person who trusts in God in the face of anxiety and trouble, the answer is the former. That person has even greater confidence that God is who he says he is and that he will do what he says he will do (as revealed in Scripture) than he does that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Having this in mind, the final verses of this psalm take a fascinating turn and reveal something special.

What the Lord does today for a person who trusts in him, he will do for all his people together in the end.

Hope, Israel, in Yahweh, for with Yahweh is steadfast love,

            and with him there is abundant redemption.

And he will redeem Israel –

from all his sins.

In this final set of verses, the psalmist switches from a personal, individual testimony of forgiveness and confidence in God to an invitation for all fellow Israelites to turn to God and trust him in the same way.

Remember, not all who were born Israelites from an ethnic, national standpoint believed in the Lord by faith. Just because God had made certain promises to them as a nation didn’t guarantee that they all believed on him. Every person in Israel needed to make a personal choice to trust in the Lord for themselves. As my friend, Alfred Tofibam says, “God has no grandchildren.” Everyone must come to the Lord by faith themselves and cannot experience forgiveness from sin and deliverance from anxiety and trouble just because their parents or their church believes or teaches so. This fact explains why the writer of this psalm appeals to all the people of Israel to trust in God.

He wanted them to experience the same confidence in God and forgiveness from God as they faced anxieties and troubles of their own. As you may know, Israelites in general tended to blame God for their problems rather than trust him. They did this as they traveled through the wilderness, and they have done this ever since. Read the prophets and you will see this to be the case. So, this song reminds them to trust in God rather than turn from him in their trials.

Anyone may come to God with honesty and faith to experience his “steadfast love,” which is his covenant-keeping loyalty to his people – he will never let them down or fall short of he said he would do.

Anyone may also receive his “abundant redemption.” This “abundant redemption” refers to total and complete liberation. God is liberal not miserly in his forgiveness of sins, and he liberates people completely from the record and guilt of their sins. He only requires complete honesty and trust.

The final line of this psalm emphasizes that God is so reliable that even the nation of Israel will be liberated from its sins in the end. This is a reference that looks ahead to that future day when God will fulfill all his promises to Israel as a nation, establishing Jerusalem as the center of world government and placing a king of David (Christ himself) on the throne of the world forever. At this future time, he will remove all injustice and oppression from the earth and his people will never be enslaved or oppressed again. What God does for individual people of faith on a microscale he will do for all his people on the macroscale in the end.

Do you have anxiety today? Are you facing overwhelming problems? The solution is to turn Jesus Christ alone with all your heart as the Lord – as your God and Savior in whom you trust completely. Acknowledge your own sins to him rather than blaming or running from people around you. Come to him with honest confession and repentance and accept his full and complete forgiveness from the guilt that you are carrying within.

When anxiety overwhelms the soul, God’s people trust in him completely. Do you?

When anxiety comes, do you genuinely talk to God?

As we consider this psalms first two verses, we should ask how many times in life have you thought about God, felt like you needed him, or wished for him to help you but never actually prayed? Such prayerlessness reveals a lack of genuine, real faith. When a person doesn’t actually come to God, talking to God about his problems and requesting his intervention, then such faith is illusionary and pretend at best but not real faith. Show me how a person prays, when he prays, or if he prays, and I will show you what he actually believes about God.

You can talk about God all you want, but if you never actually talk to God, then you may not actually know him at all. If you trust in the Lord, then you will turn to him in times of trouble. You will express your total trust in him through prayer. Though there may be other causes for anxiety in our lives and though our circumstances in life may be hard to handle, it’s possible – even very likely – that much of our anxiety is simply due to a lack of genuine faith and a flat-out failure to pray.

We run to counselors, entertainment, medications, and so-called friends who do nothing but affirm and coddle our anxieties or we run away entirely and hide ourselves – we do anything but run to God in prayer, and this is our problem. We say that we believe in God, but we don’t actually speak to him and go to him like he is there. We may think about him, but do we pray? How much have you genuinely spoken to God this past week? If your soul is overwhelmed by anxiety for any reason, perhaps you need to pray.

When anxiety comes, do you take personal responsibility for your sins or make excuses?

If your soul is overwhelmed with anxiety, perhaps the cause or the reason for the degree of anxiety is that you are blaming circumstances, other people, and perhaps even God as the cause for your anxiety. Perhaps you are running, hiding, and isolating yourself rather than realize that the root source for your anxiety is not in the world around you but within your own soul.

Where have you gone wrong? Where have you veered from the path of biblical teaching and godly wisdom? Where have you become self-centered, self-serving, idolatrous, materialistic, covetous, angry, dishonest, immoral, arrogant, disobedient, disrespectful, unforgiving, or lazy? These are personal choices, personal sins, and personal failures which produce guilt – rightly so – and such guilt results in uncomfortable consequences and anxiety within.

Though not always, our “deep waters” have far more to do with our own personal choices, failures, and sins than we want to admit. Be honest. Let God search your heart. Apologize to whomever you must to set broken relationships right. And most importantly, speak to God and take personal responsibility for your sins. When you do, he will forgive and forgive you abundantly. He will liberate you from your guilt (1 John 1:9).

When anxiety comes, do you wait entirely and confidently on God?

This is what faith does. It waits on God for as long as necessary and does not resort to other forced or contrived alternatives. It does not give God prescribed time limits which insist that he intervene by a certain time or else. We allow God all the time he needs and endure our troubles as long as he allows knowing that he will deliver us completely and perfectly in the end.

When anxiety overwhelms the soul, God’s people trust in him completely. Do you?

Remember how I nearly drowned as a young child? Well, I obviously survived though I felt as though I was about to die. I lived because my father had heard my cries from a distance and had swum to rescue me.

Jonah lived, too, though he was thrown into the sea in a storm and had sunk to the bottom. God provided a massive fish to swallow him, transport him, and return him to dry land.

If you will take responsibility for your sins and turn to God from your heart, he will deliver you like Jonah from the anxiety that overwhelms your soul. He’ll forgive your sins and free you from the anxiety and trouble within. This is what he does for all who trust in him.