Day 1

Psalm 62:1 - "My soul waits only upon God; from Him comes my salvation."
What is salvation? What am I being saved from? The wrath of God is one of those things that we don't hear much about in many churches across America today. Why? Because it sounds too harsh. It makes God seem like a mean dude. If people decide to believe in God, they want to believe in the nice God...the sweet baby Jesus wrapped in golden fleece diapers (courtesy of Talladega Nights).
But if you actually pick up the Bible and read it, you'll find stuff in there about God's wrath against sinful man. And to be quite honest, that's something I'd rather skip out on, even though I know I deserve it. Thank you Jesus for grace. Our salvation is a gift of God through Jesus Christ. And we can begin to experience that salvation when we receive Christ and acknowledge our wretchedness. But ultimately, our salvation will come when we stand before God in heaven and hear "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Boy oh boy, I can't wait to hear that.
Murray describes why we have such difficulty experiencing salvation completely, on this side of heaven: "All the difficulties that are brought forward as keeping us back from full salvation have their cause in this one thing: the defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God." How does this translate? Basically, we fail to rely on and be dependent wholly on God. We were created to depend on Him for our provision. Our blessedness was to be entirely dependent on God's blessings. So why do we mess that up so often? It's our stinking nature...to think we can be independent. It's not unless we can comprehend our "helplessness and absolute poverty" that we fully appreciate our dependence on God. One of my most favorite lines from the book is found on page 13: "God unceasingly giving and working; His child (me) unceasingly waiting and receiving: this is the blessed life."
Lord, may you be my "all in all" and help me to experience the truly blessed life found only in waiting on You.