I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry.
– Psalm 40:1
Can I just confess that that’s not easy to do? It’s one thing to read that verse, but it’s a whole other thing to actually do this verse, to wait patiently for the Lord. And the reason I want to lead us to pray according to this verse is because… Well, just to make a confession, I am so often impatient, impatient with the Lord. And even to say that grieves me. When I read a few verses down in verse four, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust.” And the Lord has given me every reason to be patient, to trust his timing. And yet I confess I’m so prone to be impatient, even…
Just to be totally vulnerable, right now in my own life, I’m just dealing with some physical pain. And I hesitate to even mention this because I know there are so many people, people I know, who are dealing with so much more pain for so much longer than I can even begin to think about experiencing. And yet I’m confessing that I am going impatient with this pain. It’s supposed to take time to heal.
Psalm 40:1 challenges our impatient hearts to wait on God.
And I just want to lead us to pray for patience for all of us in so many different ways. I know there are people listening to this, walking through all kinds of different things where you are prone to be impatient and we want resolution, and for good reason. We want resolution in so many different ways. And yet verse four, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust.” And so I just want to lead us to pray. God, we want to be that kind of men and women.
We want to trust in you with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding or our own timing. God, we say together, Psalm 41, we want to wait patiently for you. Teach us to wait patiently for you. Help us to wait patiently for you. And God, even as we pray that we praise you because you are so trustworthy and you are perfect in all your ways and you are always faithful to your people.
Psalm 40:1 challenges us to remind ourselves of the faithfulness of God.
We praise you for your faithfulness to your people and we praise you that you always hear our cries. When we are struggling in any way, you hear our cries. All glory be to your name. The God who hears our cries and inclines your ear to us, we praise you that when we are in pain in any way, when we’re walking through hardship or challenge or difficulty in any way, that you are never deaf to our cries.
You hear our cries and we praise you as the God who hears us, as the God who sees us, and the God who will answer your people according to your power and your wisdom and your love for us. And so we say we trust in you and we pray for hearts that can cry out with Psalm 40:1, “I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and heard my cry, and I trusted him.” Verse four. God, may this be true in our lives.
Prayer for the Baghban People
And God, as we think about waiting and we think about unreached people in the world, God, to think that there are 250,000 Baghban in Pakistan who’ve been waiting for generations and have not heard about you and your power and your wisdom and your love, that you’re the one who inclines to them and hears their cry for salvation from sin through Jesus. God, we pray, help us with urgency as your church to spread the gospel to a waiting world, to waiting Baghban people in Pakistan. God, please cause them to be reached for the gospel. Use us to reach them here, our prayers for them. Incline your ears to our cries. For the Baghban of Pakistan, we pray. All this, oh God, according to your Word in Psalm 40:1. In Jesus’ name we pray. 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.
