“But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.”
– Micah 7:7
What a cry of hope in the middle of despair. These words encapsulate the challenge that we all experience in waiting. As I read this verse and meditate on it and even say what I’m about to say, I’m speaking to myself as much as anybody else amidst a variety of things I’m waiting on during these days, waiting on asking God to do that he’s not done yet.
Micah 7:7 Encourages us To Focus on God and Not on Our Circumstances
In this picture in Micah 7:7, “As for me, I will look to the Lord,” when you are in the middle of despair, when you are in the middle of challenges, of trials, look to the Lord. If we’re not careful, we can get so focused on the challenges and the trials before us that we lose sight of the God who is sovereign over those challenges and sovereign over those trials, who is omnipotent, all-powerful, and all-wise.
Look to the Lord and wait. “I will wait for the God of my salvation.” Think about that. You have trusted, and I have trusted God to save me, you, and us from our sins and death for all of eternity. Surely if we can trust him for the next 10 trillion years and beyond, we can trust him today amidst whatever we’re walking through and we can wait on him, trusting. That’s what I love about verse seven, the way it ends, “My God will hear me.” If we’re not careful, especially when we’re walking through challenges and trials that just don’t seem to be ending, and we pray and we pray and we pray and nothing happens, or at least things aren’t happening the way we would hope or we would want to happen, or we’re asking God to move in this way or that way and it’s not happening, we can start to subtly think, “Maybe prayer doesn’t matter. Maybe God isn’t listening.”
Micah 7:7 Encourages us To Persevere and Wait in Faith
But to say in faith, “I know my God will hear me. He’s the God of my salvation. So I’m going to keep my eyes fixed on him, and I’m going to keep crying to him, and I’m going to trust that he is all powerful and all wise and all loving, and he is working in all of this, especially in my waiting, for good in my life and in others’ lives in so many different ways, and ultimately for his glory.
So we say, especially all of us who are in any season of waiting right now, God, as for us, we will look to you. We fix our eyes on you. We praise you for your sovereign power. You are in control. Nothing that we are facing or walking through is out of control ultimately. You are ultimately in control. God, you are sovereign and powerful. You have all power and you have all wisdom. God, we praise you that you know what is best in ways far beyond what we can see or know.
And we praise you that you are loving. As I think about reading in Luke 11 the other day, when we ask you as our heavenly Father for a fish, you don’t give us a snake, when we ask for bread, you don’t give us a stone, that you’re a good father and that you hear us when we ask. And so God, we ask. We ask for your help. We ask for your strength. Lord, we ask for resolution in some of these things that we’re walking through. God, we ask for peace. We ask for redemption. God, we ask that you would do what you promised to do, work all this together for the good of those who love you and have been called according to your purpose. And in light of that purpose, we will wait for you, the God of our salvation.
Praying for the Orochi People of Russia and Ukraine
And God, along those lines, we pray for the Orochi people of Siberian Russia and Ukraine who are waiting, have been waiting for centuries to hear the gospel. This people group that its population is shrinking, even dying out, so remote. God, we pray for the spread of your grace to them as they wait. They need to hear about you, the God of salvation. Hear us right now, we pray, oh God, and answer. Cause the gospel to go to the Orochi people of Russia and Ukraine. We pray all of this directly in light of your word to us, which we love. Give us Micah 7:7, faith in the middle of the waiting. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
