An Urgent Prayer, A Faith That Can Wait

Urgent from Beginning to End

This psalm is urgent from its first word to its last. It opens with "Make haste, O God, to deliver me," and closes with "O LORD, make no tarrying." The word "haste" appears twice, once at the opening and once at the close, binding the whole psalm together in urgency. And in between, David's problem is not resolved — not even slightly. This is not a testimony of resolution. It is the prayer of a man who is still waiting.

The weight of this urgency becomes clearer when set beside the sound of his enemies' mockery. They cry, "Aha, aha" — the laughter of those intoxicated with victory, of those who have utterly trampled their opponent. David has no strength left to answer them in kind. His urgent cry, "make haste," is the voice of a man who, standing before those who have gained the upper hand in everything and now mock him, has admitted that he can no longer turn the situation by his own strength. But that admission does not silence him. Instead, in that very place, David calls out to God even louder, even more desperately.

Laying Down Judgment

David first opens his mouth toward those who seek to harm him. He asks that they be put to shame and turned back. But notice what David does not do. He does not seek to repay them with his own hand. He asks only that they "be" put to shame — he does not appoint himself as judge. Though the situation is vivid enough that the mocking cry ("Aha, aha") still rings in his ears, David does not answer mockery with mockery. Judgment remains, from beginning to end, in God's hands alone.

Waiting: The Opposite Place from Urgency

Urgency does not permit waiting. To a person crying out that not one second can be spared, the word "wait" is the very opposite demand. And yet, on close reading, David is in fact waiting. No answer has come; the problem remains unsolved; and still he holds his ground. It is precisely in this place that looks like contradiction that the psalmist's faith is revealed. That faith shows itself in two ways.

The first, as we have already seen, is entrusting every adversary to the Lord. David does not repay by his own hand — he hands judgment over to God entirely.

A Shift in Gaze

The second is fixing his eyes on God together with those who seek Him. David turns his eyes away from those who seek to harm him, and turns them instead toward those who seek God. And together with them he cries out, "Let God be magnified." The timing of this confession matters. David's problem has not yet been solved. Yet he proclaims God's greatness before the problem is solved. We, more often than not, find words of praise only after our circumstances improve. David reverses that order.

Here, "those that seek thee" may not have referred only to David's contemporaries. Speaking of those who seek the Lord, David may also have called to mind — perhaps — the stories of those who sought God before him: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses in the wilderness. Remembering how great that God had been to them may well have been the very thing that steadied his heart under the weight of the urgency pressing in on him now. David reverses the order — he takes hold first of God's greatness shown throughout history, and by that strength, endures the urgency of the present moment.

The Same Poverty, A Different Place to Stand

Then the psalm returns once more to David's own condition. "But I am poor and needy." The circumstances have not changed. Yet this poverty is not the same poverty as before. David now stands before this same need holding the conviction, "Thou art my help and my deliverer." The situation has not shifted, but the place from which he faces it has.

This psalm never closes with resolution. Its final words are still, "make no tarrying." David is still waiting. But this waiting is not the same as the waiting at the beginning. It is not restlessness without conviction — it is a waiting that endures while holding fast to conviction. What this psalm shows is not a problem solved. It is a hand that has changed, though it still holds the same unsolved problem.

An urgent prayer is not a prayer that overcomes urgency by making it vanish. It is a prayer that becomes able to wait while still carrying that urgency. Psalm 70 is the prayer of one who cries out to God, "make haste," and yet does not leave that place until He comes.

A Universal Urgency, and the Secret Within It

This psalm is unlikely to be David's crisis alone. Urgent situations come to everyone. They need not even take the form of a human threat. A sudden diagnosis, shaking finances, a fracturing relationship, results that will not come — every moment that presses in and seems to mock us belongs here. But what this psalm actually offers in the face of such moments is not a technique for making the situation disappear. The situation remains, unchanged, right up to the final verse. What this psalm shows is one thing only: examining where our gaze is fixed within that situation, and deliberately turning the gaze that had been fixed on the enemy toward the place where we seek God instead. If there is a secret to overcoming urgency, this is it — not in controlling the circumstance, but in whom we look toward within it.

Questions for Reflection

What is the urgent situation pressing on me right now? Where is my heart fixed within it — on whom, on what?

Just as David's gaze shifted from his enemies to those who seek God, where is the gaze I need to shift today — from what, toward what?

Can the confession "Let God be magnified" only be spoken after my problem is resolved?