Day 12
Thursday, December 8
Bernie Powell
If you’ve ever felt that life is a battle (Ps 27:4), that close relationships are broken (27:10), that a disease is an enemy that eats away at your body (27:2), or that you are the victim of vicious lies (27:12)? If you have, then this Psalm is for you. David’s remedy is a familiar Advent theme: wait on the Lord! (27:14)
“Waiting?”
Rummaging through the attic at age ten, I stumbled on a box of my parents’ World War II love letters. High school sweethearts, they had married on Dad’s Army leave just before he shipped out “for the duration.” Mom was one of those millions of women waiting for her soldier boy to come home. There was nothing passive about her waiting. Everything in her life centered around that expectation. She threw herself into the war effort, working in a defense factory. This was her heart and her passion. And the promises they made to each other about their anticipated reunion were astonishing to the youngster who had no business exploring that part of the attic.
When her soldier did come home on a stretcher, it was all too obvious he had suffered much for that war’s victory. For eighteen months she waited at his side in the VA hospital. When he finally checked out of the hospital, it was like a resurrection into a whole new life for both of them!
David’s waiting on the Lord was not passive. It was the central “one thing” (27:4) of his life, as echoed later in the Apostle Paul’s heart cry “this one thing I do” (Phil 3:13). Far from a passive nod to objective doctrine, for David and Paul it was a passionate matter of the heart (27:8).
In the same way, may our waiting for the Lord be passionate, not passive. Only such a life-dominant longing can strengthen our hearts and our courage through
all the trials we face.
Bernie lives in Easton where he enjoys his retirement, his grandchildren, and working on a new book about our Kingdom Hope in the Messiah.