During 2025, Peachtree Church is focusing on the Book of Psalms with a series called Dwell, through which we seek to deepen our conversation with God and open ourselves to hearing his response. The practice of praying three times each day will unite the voices of our hearts and souls as we seek the day when we will see the full realization of the Kingdom of God, promised in Revelation 21:3: “…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
We will email devotionals twice weekly with Monday’s providing an overview of the Psalm as a whole, and Wednesday’s focused on that week’s Daily Dwell.
I waited patiently for the Lord;
Psalm 40:1-4
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.
Based on the movies and television shows that I watched as a kid, I became convinced that quicksand would be a nearly constant obstacle in my life. Thus I thought frequently about the proper ways to pull myself out of one of these potentially deadly locations. (That’s probably the reason I always thought I should have rope with me). The reality, though, has always been that the major obstacles in my life have not been the natural ones of quicksand or hidden chasms, but the self-inflicted ones where my own actions or inactions put me in a place, whether physical or metaphorical, that I should not have been.
This week’s Psalm feels as though the Psalmist has begun his journey in one of those patches of quicksand that I used to hold in such dread, with the need to be pulled free from a place from which he could not possibly extricate himself. The beauty of what occurs in this moment is two-fold. First, and hardest for me to grasp, is that the Psalmist waits patiently for the Lord to act in bringing him to a place where he is able to stand firmly, while the lavishness of God’s goodness appears in that He does not simply free the Psalmist from the pit but sets him on a rock, on a steady place from which he cannot be easily moved.
God responds in the ways that we expect of Him. When we call out for help, the Lord responds, not simply by aiding us as we expect and as we entreat, but rather, He does more than we expect. What can often happen in these moments is tricky. God responds to our call, and we face a choice: do we acknowledge the work of our Creator in answering our cries for help, or do we pretend that we actually were able to haul ourselves out of the mud and mire?
Part of why I love the image of quicksand in relation to this Psalm is that in order to get out of quicksand, we cannot struggle. We have to be still; we have to be patient. In the moments when we are calling out to God with our deepest desires, we need to remain patient, and that is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Often it is only when we find ourselves in the places where we have become so enmired in the muck and the mud that we feel at the point of being covered over that we call out to the Lord. That’s part of the patience: not only being able to trust in the timing being correct for God, but also being able to trust in the nudging of the Holy Spirit to actually call out for help.
For Reflection
- Have you ever felt as though you are in the midst of the mud and the mire of life? Where did you turn to for help?
- Do you find it easier to be patient when waiting for God or for another human? What makes the difference?
- Where have you seen God answer your prayers more lavishly than you expected?
Prayer
Lord, we need to be able to trust in you. We need to be able to wait patiently for you in the moments when it feels as though the world is falling apart around us. Help us to trust you; help us to see the fulfillment of your promises around us. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.
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Devotionals