Now What?

What do you do in times of crisis?

I don’t know about you, but I feel more comfortable strategizing about things that I can control than I do thinking about things that I can’t control.

Unfortunately, apart from following the advice of state and local officials, there isn’t anything we can do to overcome the challenges of these present days.

What can we do when we encounter challenges we can’t control?

Two words come to mind.

Wait.

Trust.

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.

Selah

(Psalm 62:5-8 ESV)

Psalm 62 gives us these two words in times of trouble.

First, David gives us the example of a man who understood that there are times in which the best approach is to wait on the Lord. David doesn’t advise a passive kind of waiting. We can be remarkably busy as we wait on God to do what only He can do. While we wait on God, we can pray. We can pray alone and pray with and for one another as we wait on God to move amid our circumstances. We can reach out to one another, and we can ask for help from one another. Waiting on God doesn’t need to be characterized by passivity. We can be busy serving God and others. However, waiting does acknowledge that our busyness can only be in expectation of God’s power.

Second, David reminds us to trust and to trust at all times. During David’s time, the temptation was to put one’s trust in a multitude of so-called gods and goddesses. Israel was surrounded by nations that would hedge their bets theologically. They prayed to multiple gods, all in the hopes that if one failed, perhaps another might be able to help. David’s call to Israel was for the nation to forsake all others and to put their trust firmly, wholly and exclusively in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We don’t know how God plans to move in the midst of this situation.

We can’t presume that God will move according to our will. But we can wait on God to do what only He can do, and trust that He will be our rock and our salvation, our rock, and our refuge.

We can do what David urges us to do.

Pour out our hearts before Him.