Willing and Waiting
“Yet I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD.”
Psalm 27:13-14
My favorite photo of me with my son is far from the best picture of the two of us. It’s not Instagram-worthy or even very flattering.
But whenever I see this particular picture, I remember the moment it was taken — childlike giggles tumbling out of me, tears of joy caught in my eyelashes, and my heart feeling light in that moment. To me, this is a picture of God’s goodness.
Nearly two years before my husband snapped that picture, we had experienced the loss of our infant daughter.
Grief overwhelmed me. My family would never be complete on this side of heaven, so I couldn’t imagine happiness on this earthly soil. In an effort to make sense of it all, I formed a belief that God’s goodness must be reserved for heaven. That life on this earth was meant to be survived like a prison sentence.
In the months following the loss of my daughter, God drew me to the psalms in Scripture. I craved the real and raw writings of poets like David, who lamented to the Lord yet also chose to worship Him. I felt my soul connect with David. But then I got to these verses:
“Yet I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD” (Psalm 27:13-14).
How could he make such a claim? Was this true just for him? Was this promise of seeing the Lord’s goodness on this side of heaven meant for me too?
With a doubt-filled spirit, I wrote out these two verses and asked God to prove Himself. Show me Your goodness, Lord, I prayed. Each day, I read the verses out loud. There were days my voice held a hint of sarcasm.
But little by little, the goodness of the Lord started to show up. In my son’s giggles. In the arms of my husband. In the beauty of creation. In moments of authentic conversation over coffee.
I started to realize the Lord’s goodness had been surrounding me all along. Perhaps David wasn’t claiming a change in his circumstances. He was willing his heart to see what was already there. And he was waiting for God to display His goodness again. Willing and waiting.
These verses started to chip away at the negativity of my soul. I started to be willing to see the Lord’s goodness and even anticipate it.
God’s goodness does exist on earth because God is good. Despite my circumstances, my hurts and my fickle feelings.
Whenever I walk through a difficult season, my pessimistic mind often anticipates the worst. But the Holy Spirit uses David’s words, and my favorite photo, to remind me that even in hard times, this side of eternity is filled with God’s goodness.
I need only to be willing and waiting to see it.
Father, You are good. You called all that You created “good.” Help the eyes of my heart to see Your goodness in the world around me. Hold me close while I wait for the good You are working out through all of my circumstances. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.