Like Watchmen Waiting

By David Faust

I hate to wait. 

I don’t like waiting in long lines and sitting at red traffic lights that take forever to change.  

I don’t want to hear the host at a restaurant say it will be a one-hour wait for a table. 

I don’t like it when I make a phone call and get put on hold. 

I dislike sitting in waiting rooms at doctors’ offices, and when my name is finally called, I’m led to another examination room where I have to wait a while longer. 

Because I hate to wait, it challenges me to read Psalm 130, where the word wait appears five times in two verses: “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning” (Psalm 130:5-6, New International Version).  

Just Wait 

Repetition is a common poetic device in Hebrew poetry. Notice the repeated phrase, “more than watchmen wait for the morning.” A friend who served in the Army told me that while on guard duty during the night shift, he interrupted the boredom by reading his Bible. One night he read Psalm 130, and these verses seemed written especially for him. What does it mean to wait for the Lord “more than watchmen wait for the morning”? 

You may be discouraged, but just wait! The Lord is just. Eventually he will put things right.  

You may be in trouble, but just wait! “Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy” (Psalm 130:1-2). The psalmist doesn’t specify exactly what troubles he faced, and that’s good, because it means all of us can identify with his prayer. We never sink so far that our cry, “Lord, hear my voice,” goes unheard. There is hope. Morning will certainly come, and the sunrise will be worth the wait. 

Be a Wait Watcher 

While you wait, watch for God’s grace. “If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you” (Psalm 130:3-4). God isn’t an ill-tempered accountant who takes pleasure in jotting down everything we do wrong. He is aware of everything we think, say, and do, and if he judged us only by sin’s record book, none of us could stand before him. “But with you there is forgiveness”—a gracious promise that came into sharper focus centuries after this Psalm was written, when Jesus died and rose again.  

While you wait, watch for God’s lessons. In life’s waiting room, we learn to be persistent. Abraham Lincoln said, “I am a slow walker, but I never walk backward.” And we learn to “be patient . . . until the Lord’s coming” (James 5:7). We don’t just wait. We “wait on the Lord.”  

Above the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C., there is an inscription quoting a line written by Tennyson. It says, “One God, one Law . . . and one far-off Divine event to which the whole creation moves.” When Christ returns, heaven’s banquet table will be worth the wait.  

This is the fifth in a series of articles based on selected verses from the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134). 

David Faust serves as contributing editor of Christian Standard and senior associate minister with East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of Married for Good.