Praying the Psalms: Psalm 40

Back in the 80s, U2 used to finish concerts with ‘40’—their song based on the first few verses of this Psalm. In a ritual played out at most U2 concerts for years, the band would leave the stage one by one while the crowd would sing hopefully and anthemically “how long to song this song”.

It always moved me as a teenager—partly because my favourite band were singing a Psalm…and partly because I, together with thousands of others got to sing an anthem of worship together (although, perhaps, many didn’t realise quite what was going on).

We’ll come back to the refrain later on…

What strikes me about Psalm 40, with great comfort and reassurance, comes right at the top: God’s chosen, God’s patient servants, God’s ordained kings and God’s beloved all spend some time in the pits. David did. Joseph did. Paul did. Peter did. Job sure did. And I’m guessing, if you’re anything like me, you’ve found yourself stuck there more than a few times. Perhaps you’ve ended up there all on your own, like a hapless water buffalo. Or perhaps a swift kick in the pants or circumstances entirely outside your control landed you there. Either way, the pit—the miry clay—is where you’ve found yourself.

I find the thought of David in the pit strangely encouraging. Even more assuring is that from the depths to which he has sunk, he cried out to God and waits patiently on Him. Simone Field and I were talking about this whole ‘waiting’ thing last week. It’s not really in our nature nor our culture to wait. Things should be done quickly, and in a timely manner—preferably my time. And when they’re not, we tend to get fidgety. I think it’s because we associate patience with passivity. Or we seek to suspend reality to avoid the angst of the waiting. We think that to wait is to do nothing until something happens. When it comes to waiting on God though, nothing’s further from the truth.

Waiting on God is active. Action-packed. In Romans 5:3 in The Message, Eugene coins a phrase that I’ve found myself clinging to like a life preserver from time to time. He paraphrases Paul saying:

There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.

Passionate patience. just brilliant. Nothing lifeless or passive about it. It’s alive, fully engaged and fully expectant. Passionate patience is ready for what’s next—not entirely without frustration—and informed by a confidence that God is at work. That he hears our cries, however we pitch them, and drags us back on to our feet and into wide, open and spacious places. If it seems slow in coming, stay passionate—not necessarily for your preferred outcome or ‘plan for God’, but for the solid, firm place that He’s preparing you for.

I said I’d come back to the refrain….and as I do I’m watching youtube versions of this song (and getting plenty of goosebumps as I do).

The interesting thing about the song is that it picks up on verse 3 saying ‘I will sing, sing a new song’. But he throws a refrain that changes everything. Grace enters the room.

Até Quando, Até Quando, Até Quando
(How long, to sing this song?)

We’ve been invited into this new humanity in Jesus—it’s a new song, a new life in Him. We’re singing this new song through the poems of our lives that He’s writing. Yet in all that, there’s still an ongoing sense of the now and the not yet. Of unrealised hope and the need for passionate patience. He’s set eternity on our hearts yet we still see through a mirror dimly…until  He comes.

Keep singing…until He comes.

– Simon Elliott