February 25 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him" (Ps. 37:7).

Devotional

It is just this simple, patient waiting upon God in all your straits that certainly and effectively results in your deliverance. In all circumstances of faith's trial, of prayer's delay, of hope's deferment, the most proper and grace-filled posture of the soul—that which insures the greatest returns of blessing to us and of glory to God—is a patient waiting on the Lord.

Even though your impatience will neither cause God to break his covenant nor to violate his oath, yet a patient waiting will bring down larger and richer blessings.

The moral discipline of patience is very costly. It keeps your soul humble; it keeps it believing; it keeps it prayerful. The mercy in which it results is all the more prized and precious because of the long season of hopeful expectation.

It is actually possible to receive too speedy a return. In your eagerness to grasp the mercy, you may lose your grip on faith and prayer and God. A patient waiting on the Lord's time and mode of acting on your behalf will tend to check all unworthy and unwise maneuvers and attempts at self-rescue. An immediate deliverance may be purchased at too costly a price. Its present taste may be sweet, but afterwards it may be bitter—God himself embittering the blessing that was not sought with a eye single to his glory.

God's timing (even though it tarries) and God's deliverance (even though it is delayed), when it does come always proves to have been the best. "For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him" (Ps. 62:5).

To you, O God, I lift my eyes,
the one enthroned above the skies!
Just as slaves eye their master's hand,
just as maids watch their lady's hand,
so to the LORD, our God, we gaze
until his mercy he displays.

Show mercy, LORD, show mercy, please,
for we have had too much disgrace.
We have had more than we can stand
of loathing from the high and grand,
of how they scoff and sneer aloud,
all those who are at ease and proud!

(Psalm 123, Larry E. Wilson, 2005; Tune: Fillmore [Jeremiah Inalls, 1764-1828])

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.