He inclined to me and heard my cry.

Psalm 40:1-10 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

God Sustains His Servant.  For the choir director. A Psalm of David.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
² He 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.
³ He 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.

⁴ How 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.
⁵ Many, 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.

⁶ Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired;
My ears You have opened;
Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.
⁷ Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
⁸ I delight to do Your will, O my God;
Your Law is within my heart.”

⁹ I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips,
O Lord, You know.
¹⁰ I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.

The psalmist says:  I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He 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.  Patience can be difficult when we are experiencing a hard time. The psalmist says: He inclined to me and heard my cry.  Sometimes it seems as though God has not heard our cry.   In Daniel 10:12-14 it says:  “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to the days yet future.”   If it seems as though God is not hearing or responding to our prayer, it could be that something is holding the answer back. We can pray that God’s angels will fight for us; that what we need would be released. It could also be though that what we are asking for has been heard by God and is in fact already answered for us. It could be that we are seeing in our own finite time and the answer has been provided in God’s eternal and infinite time. In John 19:30, when He was on the cross, Jesus said:  “It is finished!”  Everything we need was already accomplished and provided through the finished work of the cross. What we need at times is not to have God do something. It is that we need to be able to see what He has already done. Jesus taught us to pray saying:  Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.   At times what we need is to see the circumstances of earth line up with the realities of heaven.   The psalmist says:  He 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.  He 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.  Sometimes rather than crying out to God for what we want Him to do, we need to sing a song of praise for what He has already done.

The psalmist says:  How 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. Many, 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.  Rather than seeking the blessings of God, perhaps we should recognize how blessed we are. His blessings are already too numerous for us to count. It is a blessing simply that we can trust the Lord.  The psalmist says:  I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.”  I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, You know.  I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.     Do we delight to do the will of God?  His law is within our heart.   Our conscience tells us right from wrong, it is a matter of whether we do what we know is right. James 4:17 says:  If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them.

I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, You know.  I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.   Amen.