Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.

Lord, hear my voice!

Let Your ears be attentive

To the voice of my supplications.

If You, LORD, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with You,

That You may be feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait,

And in His word do I hope.

My soul waits for the Lord

More than the watchmen for the morning;

Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the LORD;

For with the LORD there is lovingkindness,

And with Him is abundant redemption.

And He will redeem Israel

From all his iniquities.

—Psalm 130

Today we wrap up our series looking for the character of God through the Psalms by looking at Psalm 130. Like Psalm 126-127, Psalm 130 is a psalm of Ascent, which means it was one of the songs the people of Israel would sing on their way to Jerusalem to worship God, and it’s packed with truth about who our God is!

The first stanza starts the way many psalms start—with deep pain and emotion over the speaker’s sin—but it’s quickly followed by the request that God hear the speaker’s prayer. 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally go around asking people for something if I don’t think there’s a chance they’ll say yes. The fact that the speaker made this request shows us that he knows God to be a God who listens to the prayers of His people. That same assurance is mirrored in the next two verses when the psalmist recognizes the depths of his sin but doesn’t miss a beat in saying that God forgives.

Even as the psalmist recognizes and laments over his sin, he also celebrates the attentiveness and forgiveness of God with a confidence that’s rooted in the truth of God’s unchanging goodness.

A shift occurs between stanza one and stanza two. Instead of focusing on bringing his sin before God and seeking forgiveness, the psalmist repeatedly talks about waiting on the LORD in stanza two. In verses 5-7 alone, the psalmist mentions expectantly waiting on God five times. If you can’t find all of them in your translation, that’s probably because you see the phrase “hope in the LORD” instead, but it means the same thing—to expectantly wait. 

The psalmist even uses an analogy to explain how eager he is as he waits on the LORD. As eager as the watchmen who have to wait for dawn to be done with work and go home, he is just as eager to see God of God’s work in his life.

But why is the psalmist this eager? The question must be asked—what makes God worth the wait?

The answer comes in the last two verses where the speaker’s perspective shifts and he starts speaking to the people of Israel rather than speaking about his own longing for God. Why hope—or wait—in the LORD? Because of His lovingkindness and His desire to bring about abundant redemption.

I love that our God cares about abundance, but not in the sense of material things. Whenever you read about God bringing abundance, we’re not generally talking about Him bringing about an abundance of money—although He can do that too. Instead, we’re talking about an abundance of life, an abundance of joy, or in this case, an abundance of redemption. When He brings abundance, it’s always the most important things, and He is always eager to be generous.

That’s our God. That’s who we serve. He is the God who we can count on to hear us and forgive us when we bring Him our sins and repent. He’s the God who is brimming with lovingkindness for His children. He’s the God who is generous with His children, giving abundantly when it comes to the most important things in life. 

And because of all these things and so much more that we could have talked about, He is the God who’s worth the wait. Not in the sense that He’s bad about arriving late to the party, but in the sense that He will provide the abundance and redeem His people in His time, and that timing will never disappoint.

What a great God we serve!