Wait on the Pitch

You better listen when your coach says something twice because it’s important. Psalm 27 ends with verse 14 telling us twice to wait on the Lord. It’s safe to say that many of us have trouble waiting; we desire to have what we want when we want it.

Baseball has a common saying: “Wait on the pitch.” This means to not swing the bat too early and to let the ball come to you. Why would that need to be standard advice? Because many batters get anxious and swing with anticipation that the ball is coming instead of waiting for it to arrive.

David, who wrote this psalm, needed to remind himself to wait on God because he was tempted to get ahead of God. In the few verses before, David reminds us of God’s goodness and that to wait on God is to wait expectantly for all that goodness to come to pass. When we choose to get ahead of God, we miss out on the true blessing due to our impatience. God wants us to trust Him and learn to listen to the Holy Spirit. We are often too eager to sit and be quiet before God. We are taught to act and move quickly in this world, but that’s not always what God wants.

To wait on God isn’t to sit and do nothing. Waiting on God is waiting with assurance that the goodness He promises will come to pass. When a baseball player waits on the ball, they are sure it will get to them for their chance to swing. When a player doesn’t wait on the ball, they jump the gun and, more times than not, swing and miss. They missed because they took the matter into their own hands and were not patient.

Are you able to be patient enough to hear God today?