As we have studied this Psalm we have found it was written in the times when Doeg killed the priest that aided David.  David fled from Saul and during these days he lived with the great roller coaster of emotion from faith to fear.

In verses 13 and 14 there are bold statements of confident faith.  The text says, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait I say, on the LORD.”

In verse 13 David’s faith begins to once again soar because of his focus.   Fainting of heart is common to all.  It is the idea of wanting to give up, throw in the towel.  Even David the giant killer and Israel’s sweet singer had spells of faintness of heart.  In this verse by faith he puts the fragrance of hope to the nostrils of his soul and he is revived.  David sets the focus of his fainting heart on the goodness of God.

One has said that the goodness of God is His all-sufficiency.  He alone is all that is needed, yea more than is needed for any hour or any situation.  I believe this but often I don’t act like I believe it.  David said he “…believed to see the goodness of the LORD…” The word, ‘believe’ is the core of thoughts that gives one confidence in another.  He has set the focus of his thoughts upon the all-sufficient goodness of God.  It amazes me how our mind and our thoughts keep coming into the plans that God had laid out for us who walk upright.  I rejoice that at conversion the mind of Christ came and took up residence in me.  David said he did this in the “…land of the living.”  How often in this land of living there is so much darkness and death.  When it comes nigh our dwelling let us look to ‘Him’ who is the all-sufficient goodness of God.  Job said, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him’.  While he was receiving the strokes of death and disease, he continued to grip the goodness of God’s all-sufficiency.  When we have exhausted our store of endurance, faith in the all-sufficient One, brings a news supply of endurance.

In verse 14 David brings time back into the focus of the land of the living with the phrase, “Wait on the LORD:” It is something we all have problems doing.  In this hour of instant everything we want God to do it right now.  Our Lord has no watch or calendar.  I have never known Him to be early or late, but I could write a book about Him being right on time.  A failure to wait is something that lost Saul the Kingdom.  Surely David learned to wait from Saul’s mistakes.  Spurgeon said, “Wait at His door with prayer.  Wait at His feet with humility.  Wait at His table with service and wait at His window with expectancy.”

We are told to be ‘of good courage’ while we wait.  This is a military term of a soldier.  It is the warring soldier’s motto.  Let it be our own as well.  When the soldier goes from warring to waiting it is here he does his greatest battle.

Thomas Kent said, “Hell trembles at a heaven focused eye.”  This is the only cure for the fainthearted.  Oh, how dark our so-called land of the living is this day.

Let us ponder the words of Sir Richard Baker, “Alas! What a land of living is this in which there are more dead than living, more under ground than above it; where the earth is fuller of graves than houses: where life lies trembling in the hand of death; and where death hath power to tyrannize over life! No, my soul, there only is the land of the living where there is none but the living; where there is a church, not militant, but triumphant; a church indeed, but no churchyard, because none dead, nor none that can die; where life is not passing, nor death active; where life sits crowned, and where death is swallowed up in victory.”  Oh, let us wait upon this place that is totally the land of the living.  I hear the good all-sufficient One sits upon a throne over this place.