For God alone my soul waits in silence.” The psalmist offers healing for the world-weary soul. In the midst of an uncertain and violent world—if we are still, we may hear the psalmist’s voice urging us to trust in God. The opening two verses of the psalm bear a striking resemblance to verses 5 and 6 of today’s reading. Verses 3 and 4 lay out the problem facing the psalmist: He feels assailed, battered, and surrounded on all sides by people who pay lip service to God while deceiving others. Nothing less than pouring out his heart before God will do as he affirms the unshakable foundation of his life. His images of God are more than metaphors meant to be stitched onto a pillow: rock, salvation, fortress, refuge. They are strong, trustworthy. In verse 8, he reminds the members of his community to trust in and to “pour out [their] heart before [God].”
Often church people foster the idea that we can separate our theology—our words and beliefs about God—from the struggles and pain in our lives. For the psalmist, our trials may be the very place where we develop an authentic relationship with God—a relationship in which we experience God as refuge and place of solace. We may find ourselves asking, “How long?” as does the psalmist in verse 3. How long must we remain in a situation of abuse? How long will people delight in falsehood? We face the rawness of our emotions and the pain of our economic or political realities and discover the ultimate rest and security that come in trusting God. In the midst of trials and trouble, we calm our soul. In the silence, God calls us into relationship, and we move from where we are to where God longs for us to be. When we become vulnerable, God can use us.