“Wait for the LORD and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off” (Psalm 37:24).
Psalm 37 is basically a commentary on how God will overthrow all evildoers. Right now, they might seem to be thriving; but one day, it will be different. One day, God will enact judgement on all wickedness, and those who have worked against Him will suffer the punishment of their deeds. Those who have trusted in God, however, will be exalted before Him, and He will shower them with the blessings He has long promised. The fascinating thing about this psalm is the large number of future tense words used in it. David discusses some future reality about thirty times in this forty-verse passage. His point behind the psalm is clear: what God has promised is going to happen, just not yet.
This theme of waiting on God is common to the entirety of Scripture. Thousands of times, people are instructed to be patient and wait for God to act, to trust Him and do what He says, believing that He will do what He has promised. Psalm 37 is full of such charges. Trust in the LORD, the psalmist adjures. Don’t worry about your enemies; God’s going to take care of them one day. In the meantime, keep delighting yourself in God. One day, He’s going to make everything right. Just wait for Him.
It’s not easy to wait, especially when everything around us feels insane. How can we be patient and wait for God in the middle of something so chaotic? But the mood of Psalm 37 is one of complete peace. The author has experienced many difficulties before and come safely out of them, and now he assures his anxious readers that God will act again on their behalf. “Commit your way to the LORD,” he encourages; “trust in him, and he will act” (v. 5). It’s really that simple. Trust in God, wait for Him, and be prepared to rejoice when He does what He promised. In fact, go ahead and start rejoicing now. With God, a future reality is just as sure as a present one.