Week 8: Psalm 62
Psalm 62
How do you handle awkward silence? Are you like me, where one second of silence leads you to immediately rack your brain with endless conversation starters? Or are you like my husband, who can sit in an eternity of silence and not feel an ounce of awkwardness? You might guess who talks more in our marriage!
My need to fill the silence is often an impulse to control and manufacture what I think is good for the moment. This is not unlike what I often do with God. I am tempted to fill life with busyness in an attempt to forget my worries. I am quick to take control of a situation in hopes of minimizing pain. I am often caught striving for approval in hopes to be seen and liked by all.
Psalm 62 offers the believer a different way—a way out of the striving and a way into real rest in God alone! David is stating the truth that God alone is where He waits in both silence and complete rest. God is not just something to intellectually believe in, but rather a Being to put our full hope and trust in. Like the way we trust a chair every time we sit down or the way we walk on a bridge without thinking, trust in God should be reflexive at all times. This Psalm pushes us to examine what exactly we are trusting. What is holding up our comfort and our peace? Is it frail and easily broken under the weight of our human soul? Anything short of the salvation and refuge of God our Father is a hopeless substitute for our souls.
Charles Spurgeon said, “It is a blessed thing to wait only on God. You have proved everything else to be a failure, and now you hang upon the bare arm of God alone. There is certainly enough for us to depend on there.” It is God alone that our souls can wait on. I love how verse eight in this psalm says, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” We earnestly yearn to take control of our world through our own strength, just like I yearn to take control of awkward silence. But God is offering us to let Him shoulder that weight. He is offering us the gift of pouring our image, our control, our pain, our hurt, and our fears on Him. He wants to be a refuge for our souls in a world that can never be that for us.
Let Psalm 62 lead you to be okay with awkward silence this year with God. What if we did less talking and more sitting to remember all He has already told us? What if we waited on His timing just as He has commanded us instead of trying to seize things on our own timeline? What if we truly put our faith in Him over and over again this year? Our God applauds faith and knows that we need Him to shoulder the big stuff. So let us rely on Him, wait on Him, and see Him to be all He promises to be for us.
-Brooke