What are you waiting for

Peter Lockhart

An extended call to worship based on Psalm 130

Let us worship God


“My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning
More than those who watch for the morning”

As we gather here on this day we come to wait upon the Lord in a world which that suffers the illusion that we should not have to wait for anything.

We get annoyed when we call someone on their mobile phone and they do not answer.
We send a text hoping for an instant response.
We send an email and expect a same day reply.
We get frustrated when the internet takes more the 5 seconds to upload.

When we are bored we seek entertainment with the flick of a switch.
We can get our movies on demand.
We are not good at waiting.

Saving seems so arduous and going into debt has few barriers.
We own what we want and we own it now.
We buy new cars, TVs, toys and houses.
We go on trips and buy experiences.

We suffer the delusion that we do not have to wait, that things are ours by right and that we should not be delayed in our access to whatever we want.

Yet here today in this moment we come to wait upon the Lord and to remember that despite this society of instant gratification in which we live our lives are so much formed and reformed around waiting.

We find ourselves waiting all of the time, sometimes it is a positive experience and others, well it simply is not, but waiting is part of what we do.

We wait in doctors and dentist surgeries.
We wait for the baby to be born.
We wait for the results of the medical tests.
We wait for birthdays, some looking forward to them others dreading them.
We wait for each other to be ready.
We wait for Christmas and the turning of the year.
We wait for the worship time to finish so we can move on to the next part of our day.
We wait for school to finish.
We wait for dad or mum to come home.
We wait for our children to come visit us.
We are waiting to rally live and like it not we are waiting to die.
We wait in boredom;
We wait actively; we wait passively;
We wait as time passes slowly and we wait as time flies by.

And today, now, in this moment we wait upon the Lord.

The Psalmist certainly had a sense of urgency in his waiting for the Lord in the midst of his troubles. Out of the depths, not of despair, by the deep waters of trouble in which he found himself the Psalmist cries looking for the Lord.

As enter into this time of worship I invite you to contemplate what you are waiting for in your life and what it means for you to come and wait on the Lord.