Happy Trails: Journey Through the Psalms of AscentSample

Even in our busiest days, our lives are full of waiting. We check if we’ve gotten the response we’ve been anticipating as we pause at a red light. We wait for school to break for the summer, and as the autumn months start to pass we wait for the ski slopes to open. Often though, our waiting isn’t nearly as trivial. We wait to be freed from the ties of anxiety and depression. We wait for the pregnancy test to at long last come back as positive. We wait for cancer to be eradicated and for a clean bill of health. We wait for the paralyzing grief of losing a loved one to turn into healing and peace. Night can come upon our souls in a multitude of ways, and we can begin to wonder if our morning will ever return. But the psalmist says, wait for the Lord even more than the watchman waits for the morning. Let the deepest cry of our hearts be not simply for change in our present circumstances but for the God who formed both night and day to meet with us right where we sit and enlighten our darkness.

Jesus is Emmanuel -- God with us. His presence is in the corner office of the CEO and in the nursery of a little child. We are met by God’s abiding company each time we seek Him in prayer, no matter who we are, what we have done, and what we are facing today. His matchless love finds us at all hours, no matter how dark it may be outside. The light of the world can turn any waiting room into a place of worship.

Micah 7:8 says, “Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” (NLT)

1. Are you in a night season today? If so, are you keeping company with God through it?
2. Where in your life are you tempted to rush ahead, rather than wait for God? Ask Him for patience in His perfect timing.
3. In the midst of whatever you are facing today, make time to come into God’s presence in worship either alone or with fellow believers. Watch the atmosphere of your heart change.