Good morning,
Wait quietly for salvation from the Lord
Samuel was a godly judge in Israel who had a very special reputation as a man who did things God’s way. As he aged, he trained his two sons to do his work as a judge. God told him that he needed to anoint another person other than Saul as the next king. He was told that it wasn’t one of his sons, but one of Jesse’s sons he was supposed to anoint. When he met Jesse’s family he saw lots of sons there. God told him he would show him the right one. He started with the best looking one and God said, No. He went down the line till he met all of them and again God said, No, each time. The Lord told Samuel, The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”(1Sam.16:7) There was one more son taking care of the sheep,David, and when he came in the Lord said to anoint him. What God told Samuel is something every child of God needs to remember no matter what is going on around us. The problem that we face when looking at our own hearts, or someone else around us, is what God told Jeremiah. He said, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?(Jer.17;9) None of us can see all that God sees. Only God knows what we will do when confronted with a powerful push from circumstances or a life or death circumstance. The Lord continued, But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”(v.10)
The other part of dealing with God is the he will do things in ways that seem too painful or unfair or even too deadly for us to understand. Even though the prophet Jeremiah had warned the Jewish people of God’s anger with their rebellion and the promise that he would drive everyone out of Judah for many years, when it actually happened, Jeremiah responded, I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken. My spirit is poured out in agony as I see the desperate plight of my people.(Lam.2:11) Even children and babies were dying around him.(Was God there when they died?) Then Jeremiah was forced to travel with the final group of rebellious people who left for Egypt and they treated him like a liar. But then Jeremiah still wrote, Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.(Lam3:21-23) He ended that part of what was going on in his heart by saying, So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.(v.26) Waiting quietly requires us to trust God as someone who never makes a mistake and who does not have to explain his plan or purpose when the unexpected immediate outcome doesn’t make sense to us. For example, Daniel and his three friends were taken as captives, and God used them in a very public and effective way. At the same time they also took Ezekiel with them and he, as a prophet, was hated by his own people because he was telling them at God’s direction how wicked they as fellow captives were who still would not love and trust their God. Our wicked hearts teach us to do the right thing so that people and God will see us as good people. We do what we do to be seen. We expect other people and God to like us because of the way we behave. We only see ourselves as serious sinners if we get caught. Dear Lord, will you please give us God centered hearts instead of having hidden lying hearts like the normal people around us.
Lamentations 3:26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.
Roy Wisner
