A New Perspective on Waiting

I was reading in the Psalms the other day. I couldn’t help but notice how each Psalmist is often waiting on something. I quickly found myself connecting in a deeper way with these verses.

But, hold on a second, I thought. The way these writers are waiting is different than the way I naturally wait. These guys are much more…positive.

Quickly I got online and did a word search for “wait” in the Psalms. I found two words that combined for a total of 33 appearances in the Psalms alone.

One is the Hebrew word yachal, which means “to wait, hope, expect”. The other is qavah, which translates almost identically. These words are translated into English in our Bibles as “wait” and “hope” almost interchangeably.

For instance, read Psalm 130:5…it uses both yachal and qavah:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

In the Hebrew language, wait=hope. Hope=wait. Holy cow.

Instead of waiting looking like an aggravating way to test my patience and cause me to lose sleep, with the knowledge of the original definition, waiting looks more like a hopeful expectation. Waiting trusts. Waiting hopes. Waiting is leaning forward with expectation that God will deliver on His promises.

So now we’re waiting in a different way. We’re expecting…expecting a beautiful child from Ghana. Expecting God to come through. Expecting our hopes to be fulfilled.