Raquel and I are involved in a Life Group, an extension of our church, that puts folks together for a small-group style Bible study, dinner, conversation, and prayer time. We've recently hooked up with our current group after the one we were previously involved in sort of dissolved.

Last night our text was Psalm 40. Of course, we all know this Psalm (or at least the gist of it) from the song Forty by U2 that pretty much completely borrows the first three verses of this Psalm as the lyrical text. But it was refreshing to take a look at it and really analyze it within the context of what King David was trying to say when he wrote it.

¹I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
²He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
³He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the LORD.
⁴How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust,
And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.
⁵Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done,
And Your thoughts toward us;
There is none to compare with You
If I would declare and speak of them,
They would be too numerous to count.

Now, that's a nice read and all, but as we were going through that last night, line by line, and going through various discussion points, I got hung up on verse 3 and 4 where David talks of trusting in the LORD. As Christians, we talk about that an awful lot (sometimes too much) without giving much thought (or so it seems to me) about what that means...really. What does it mean to trust in the LORD? What does that look like? I mean, of course I know in my mind what it means, but what does it look like when it comes time to put it into action?

What does it look like when your income gets cut in half to pay for someone that you don't even know but should and you have these expensive dreams you long to follow but can't because can't get a loan and can't afford to follow them and you and your wife have to change your comfortable lifestyle just so you and she can just live above water and you're burned out at work and...and...and................

What does that look like? What does it mean to trust in the LORD?

I'm not sure I know the answer to that question yet, but I know that it involves patiently waiting to see what happens next and keeping a postive attitude.

Last night on the way home, while pondering what we had just gone over and wondering what that looks like, I ran out of patience...again (this happened a few weeks ago too, but we don't need to go into that...let's just say that I was ready to throw in the towel then). I just wanted to tell God, "Okay, man...whenever You're ready, we could use a little relief here...".

~~~~~

This morning when I got to work, I just had a horrible attitude. I've been slowly burning out there, feeling under-appreciated...blah blah blah...whine whine whine... I just haven't liked being there lately. But, as my work ethic demands of me, I go in there every day, kick ass, take names, and head home each day and hate that the next day is coming. I've just been relieved that we have started to make some quality friends, and have an outlet such as Life Group or the worship band or the softball team or the "Friday night dates". Good times.

This afternoon at 4:45, the newly appointed VP of MIS at IFL comes up to me, fresh out of his meeting with the VP of HR discussing my new promotion and an extremely healthy raise. Yeah...I wasn't expecting this.

Without getting into the details of how much money I will now make, I can safely say that the raise will adequately cover the deficit that would have otherwise been there had the raise not come...and then some.

~~~~~

I'm not so sure how we came to be found in his favor like that. If I were to rewrite the first part of Psalm 40, it would look something like this:

I waited, albeit not so patiently, for the LORD;
Yet, despite my lack of trust, he still chose to incline and hear my cry.

I will sing a new song.