Patience

We can see the two types of waiting in most current restaurant settings. The staff at Waffle House and a five-star restaurant may both be called “waiters,” but they think of their role quite differently. At Waffle House the friendly lady assigned to your table will retrieve some ketchup for you, but it is largely up to you to initiate that transaction. She waits until you ask and then fulfills the request. (It’s not her fault, of course. The same woman assigned to your table is also responsible for cooking an omelet, cleaning the bathroom, and waiting on 17 other tables at the same time.)

At many five-star restaurants, however, a single waiter will be devoted to a single table. At the slightest hint of a need, the waiter magically shows up. Just imagine that you want some Splenda, and he appears before the request even crosses your lips. He waits on you with a single-minded (and somewhat intimidating) attentiveness, not reactively or passively.

When we wait on God, it should be more like the five-star waiter than anything else. Our attention is single-minded, and our posture is attentive. As the psalmist said,

Like a servant’s eyes on his master’s hand, like a servant girl’s eyes on her mistress’s hand, so our eyes are on the Lord our God until He shows us favor. (Ps 123:2)

We wait not by sitting still but by pursuing God’s purposes in God’s ways with God’s timing. It may seem like the real enemy before us is Saul, seeking to destroy us. But from God’s perspective the inability to wait is much more pernicious.

Counseling patience is one thing; finding the resources to actually be patient in a tumultuous time is another. Fortunately, we have another passage that shows us precisely where David found that strength. The superscript to Psalm 57 gives the circumstances of writing: “For the choir director: ‘Do Not Destroy.’ A Davidic Miktam. When he fled before Saul into the cave.”

Be gracious to me, God, be gracious to me,

for I take refuge in You.

I will seek refuge in the shadow of Your wings

until danger passes.

I call to God Most High,

to God who fulfills His purpose for me.

He reaches down from heaven and saves me,

challenging the one who tramples me. Selah

God sends His faithful love and truth.

I am surrounded by lions;

I lie down with those who devour men.

Their teeth are spears and arrows;

their tongues are sharp swords.

God, be exalted above the heavens;

let Your glory be over the whole earth. . . .

My heart is confident, God, my heart is confident.

I will sing; I will sing praises. (Ps 57:1-5,7)

First Samuel gives us a glimpse into the discussion between David and his men in the cave, but it give us little about David’s internal struggle. But here in Psalm 57, we get a glimpse into David’s heart. This psalm was written during the same span of time as our story here. For all we know, David may have been tidying up the last stanza just as Saul wandered in.

This psalm gives us four words that characterize the patient heart.

In verse 2, David points out that God “fulfills His purpose for me.” Contrary to his counselors’ advice, it is not necessary to break God’s commands to get where God wants David to go. David may not be sure precisely how God will do this, but he knows God’s plan is certain. The sovereignty of God over a confusing situation gives David the strength to wait on Him.

This phrase in verse 3 is an absolutely critical partner to sovereignty. Were David to see only the sovereignty of God, it is doubtful he would have felt that as a comfort. Sovereignty without assurance of love feels like blind fate. It leads to the resigned attitude that is common, for instance, among Muslims, who are convinced of God’s sovereignty but not of His good purposes for their lives. When invoking the will of God (“Inshah Allah”), it always comes with a shrug. “If this is God’s will,” they are saying, “then we just have to deal with it.” They do not doubt that God is at work in all things, but they lack the promise that God’s work in all things includes their good.

The gospel gives us an assurance of steadfast love that nothing else can. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross, we never have to wonder how God feels about us. When circumstances conspire to make us feel abandoned or condemned—whether that be a bankruptcy or a job loss or a divorce or a rabid king trying to kill us—we have only to look at the cross to see a God who took true abandonment and condemnation in our place. All that is left for us is goodness and mercy. We may not be given a reason for every bad turn in our lives, but if we are assured that God has a steadfast loving purpose for us, we can endure misfortune with not only patience but hope.

This is the surprising shift when, in verse 5, David says, “God, be exalted above the heavens; let Your glory be over the whole earth.” Saul is hot on David’s heels, so much so that David feels like lions are hunting him, and yet he lifts his eyes to pray for something bigger than mere relief—God’s exaltation. Whether his prayer leads to rescue or more pain, David is less concerned with himself than with his God.

This is one of the primary differences between David and Saul. Saul thinks this entire ordeal is about his name, his reputation, his kingdom. So when David seemingly infringes on that, he cannot see anything else and lashes out. But David knows this is not about him or his kingdom. He is willing for his reputation to suffer and his body to ache because he sees something beyond himself.

In verse 7, David uses the word “confident” to refer to his own faithfulness, not God’s. The two are intricately connected: David can be faithful toward God because he knows God is faithful toward him. The backbone of obedience is confidence in the faithful love of God. Assurance of that love leads to satisfaction; a lack of assurance leads to revenge, stolen pleasures, and compromise.

As Martin Luther once said, all sin begins with unbelief. Believe in God’s goodness, and you can rest content in the midst of a seeming lack of goodness. Disbelieve in that goodness, and you will invariably take steps outside of God’s will to obtain it. The tragedy is that all our efforts to obtain the good life apart from God are endlessly futile and pathetic. We are like a man being taken to a steak dinner who, distrustful of the coming feast, is busily stuffing his pockets with cheap beef jerky.

When we are tempted to take matters into our own hands, tempted to sin because of our impatience, we are failing in one of those four areas. We do not believe God is really sovereign; we are not convinced of His steadfast love; we still, like Saul, think our lives are all about ourselves; or we are not truly satisfied with God’s approval of us.

When we feel the tug to circumvent God’s way, we should ask ourselves, “Why is God’s love and approval not enough for me?” All our impatience ultimately goes back to a failure to believe the gospel. We either do not understand how God feels about us, or we fail to value His approval highly enough. And this unbelief often has us teetering on the precipice of disaster, entertaining a quick fix to a situation we dislike. Resist the urge to take that step. Trust in the all-satisfying God and wait on His goodness.

The resources for waiting are found in the steadfast love of Christ. David refrains from killing Saul when Saul deserves it, but Christ refrained from pouring condemnation on us when we deserved it. David rejects a sinful shortcut to the throne, but Christ rejected Satan’s shortcut to the throne of the world in the temptation. Christ could have taken the rule of the world by sidestepping the cross but only at the cost of our lives. He chose to go the long route to the throne so that by His death we might live.