Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from Him cometh my salvation.
—Psalm 62:1
If salvation comes from God and is entirely His work, it follows that our first and highest duty is to wait on Him and do that work that pleases Him. Waiting then becomes the only way to truly know the God of our salvation. All the difficulties that are keeping us back from full salvation have their cause in this one thing: the defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God.
The deep need for this waiting on God lies equally in the nature of man and the nature of God. God, as Creator, formed man to be a vessel in which He could show forth His power and goodness. Man was not to have, in himself, a fountain of life or strength or happiness. The ever-living One was each moment to communicate to man all that he needed.
When he fell from God, he was still absolutely dependent on Him. There was not the slightest hope of his recovery but in God. It is God alone who began the work of redemption. It is God alone who continues and carries it on each moment. Even in the regenerate man, there is no power of goodness in himself. Waiting on God is just as indispensable, and must be just as continuous, as the breathing that maintains his natural life.
It is because Christians do not know their relationship to God as absolute poverty and helplessness that they have no sense of absolute dependence or of the blessedness of continually waiting on God. But, once a believer begins to consent to it, waiting on God becomes his brightest hope and joy. God unceasingly working and His child unceasingly waiting and receiving—this is the blessed life.
“Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from Him cometh my salvation.” First, we wait on God for salvation. Then, we learn that salvation is only to bring us to God and teach us to wait on Him. Then, we find what is better still, that waiting on God is itself the highest salvation. It is ascribing to Him the glory of being All; it is experiencing that He is All to us. May God teach us the blessedness of waiting on Him!