Living His Word

Psalm 42:5 ERV: Why am I so sad? Why am I so upset? I tell myself, “Wait for God’s help! You will again be able to praise him, your God, the one who will save you.”

Sometimes sadness and being upset can creep up on us. We go about the daily affairs of life and these twin perturbations of the soul sneak up on us and bring us down emotionally without us fully realizing it. Finally, when the discomfort they cause dawns on us, we ask the questions of our verse for today. “Why am I so sad? Why am I so upset?” For people of faith, however, the questions we put to ourselves are not straightforward in nature, but rhetorical.

They are rhetorical because the answer is assumed and obvious. There is no reason for sadness and upset. As people of faith, we have a resource that can render unnecessary any need we feel to be sad and upset. We have God. God can help us with whatever it may be that has afforded sadness and being upset the opportunity to sneak up on us. If we wait for God’s help, we will not wait in vain. After all, “God is our protection and source of strength. He is always ready to help us in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1). God specializes in helping His people out of the troubled situations of life that trouble our souls.

If we wait on God, then we will place our trust in Him. We will believe that He can help us in our time of need and He will come through when the time is right. Waiting on God includes trusting that he knows when the time is right. If it were up to us, of course, there would be no waiting at all. For us, “now” is always the right time. God, however, has His own plans and His own purposes and people of faith are willing to wait on God. They are willing to wait because they believe in faith that God’s timing is better than their own timing. If we wait on God, then the time will come when we will once again praise Him for what He has done. Since God is the one who will save us, it is only appropriate that we acknowledge that fact by giving Him the praise and glory.