A Dive into the Wait

Wait for and confidently expect the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for and confidently expect the Lord. – Psalm 27:14 (AMP)

Sometimes I read verses, such as Psalm 27:14, and I feel a flicker of something in my heart. It can be encouragement, a challenge, or even a judgement that mercifully realigns my heart back to Him (read last week’s article on the Logos Invitation, if you haven’t already....Mailing List | Mandy Woodhouse).

Psalm 27:14, as seen in the Amplified, New King James and other versions, is such an encouragement to my inner world. It represents more than hope. It definitely realigns where I may be at, but it also gives me courage and strength to just keep going. Even if just baby steps, knowing that I can confidently expect the Lord to move on my behalf is everything.

In my time with the Lord, I often like to rip apart verses in their original Hebrew or Greek meaning. When I looked at the Strong’s concordance and drilled down into the deeper meaning of some of the words in Psalm 27:14, I went from feeling the warm-fuzzy encouragement to a feeling of dividing and realignment. This verse carries more substance than we know at first glance.

“To wait” in the original Hebrew context is not just to sit around in confidence and expectation, though that’s a part of it. To wait actually means to gather and bind or twist together like a cord. In the tension of “waiting,” there is always an open door to walk away and choose to either give up completely or do things in your own understanding and strength. The picture that the Lord gave me here is in my own waiting, to choose to gather up all my strength, all my crazy emotions and thoughts and completely bind myself to HIM, waiting IN HIM with a confidence and expectation that He will do what He says He will do. Twisting myself around the essence of Who He is.

The next Hebrew meaning that caught me by surprise is the meaning of “be strong.” It definitely means to be sturdy, firm, bold. But it also means to remain obstinate. Google defines obstinate as “stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.”  This is a beautiful illustration of what it looks like, in practice, to bind yourself to the Lord and stubbornly NOT MOVE. What a challenging concept when emotions are usually up and down during the wait.

Letting your heart take courage is equally as challenging in the Hebrew. “Heart” here refers to a person’s inner world, while “courage” means literally “to tie bonds strongly.” It also means “to prevail, to fortify, to make firm.” One of the things that I felt the Lord say about this is that He wants our inner worlds fortified and firm. I think of the storm season in South Louisiana where I grew up, when everyone would tie down things that had the potential to blow away, and fortify their windows and outdoor furniture, etc. It’s literally Matthew 7, the wise man who built his house on a rock and didn’t fall when the storms came – only inside our own selves.

Now, back to what I said earlier about scripture dividing and bringing realignment. When I dug deeper and found the true meaning of these words, the scripture went from a warm encouragement to something that penetrated my heart and allowed me to see what was actually there. Knowing the deeper meaning of this verse in context also puts the responsibility more on ME than I had originally thought. It doesn’t just give me hope; it realigns my life back to His Lordship. It exposed where I wasn’t bound to Him completely, and where I needed His help to be more immovable in even the “why’s” of the waiting period.

In summary, what I have learned from Psalm 27:14 is life changing. Waiting on the Lord is more than just having a confident expectation of good. It looks like binding myself to the essence of His goodness. It looks like allowing my inner world, my heart, to be fortified while I remain obstinate in tying down and anchoring my crazy emotions to the truth of Who He actually is.

If this is you, I encourage you to allow the Lord to show you where your insides need to be fortified and then bind yourself to Him and don’t let go at all costs. We CAN confidently expect Him to do what He has promised.

All the best,

Xoxo Mandy