Psalm 119:121-128

My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise. Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love and teach me your statutes. I am your servant; give me understanding that I may know your testimonies. . .

As I have worked to commit this section to memory, it delights me that what David’s eyes longed to see so long ago echoes my own longing. Though centuries have passed, we are united in this yearning. Yet there is one major difference. David longed to see Messiah revealed; those of us who now long for Him are longing for His return. He has already been revealed!

The first advent of Jesus was the literal realization of the longing David expresses in this psalm, for Jesus’ name rendered in Hebrew means “salvation.” I find it intriguing to think that my eyes long for the very same thing. Only, unlike David, I am not waiting for the Messiah to arrive but to return. Last time, He came as a servant; next time, He will come as a Conquering King.

And I do long to see this thing with my own eyes, but yet… there are so many who do not yet know Him, so many who do not believe or even scoff at Him. So many who, if He came again right now, would be caught in the hardness of their hearts, and too late for repentance, would die in their sin, forever doomed to a place that is described by Jesus Himself as a place of eternal and unquenchable fire (Matthew 25:41, Mark 9:43).

For this reason alone, I am conflicted. I eagerly desire to see Him restore all creation to its intended splendor. On one hand, I cry, “It is time for the Lord to act, for Your law has been broken,” especially when I see the news and hear of human trafficking, people forced to flee their homes in terror, rampant immorality, murders, disease, abortion, rape… such a sea of human suffering. At these times, I long for the end to come and the great Day to dawn.

Then a gentle voice invades my thoughts and reminds me how many who suffer do not yet know the Truth. Not only those, but how many who perpetrate such atrocities are not purely evil but only deceived, having swallowed wholesale the lies of the enemy of our souls and may even now only need a word of forgiveness, a word of hope in order to turn from their sin and believe.

They are human, too, also made in the image of God and stained, twisted, and distorted by sin. Not all their hearts are hardened beyond reach. Who knows what internal anguish has brought them to afflict pain on others?

For their sake, I ask that the Lord will give me understanding that I may know His testimonies. May He give them understanding, as well, and teach His statutes abundantly. When I think of the many lost souls, my prayer becomes more fervently, “My eyes long to see Your salvation,” for I long to see the darkness and evil dispelled by the light of Truth. I long to see even the wicked brought to repentance and saved.

Justice, O Lord, I leave to You and I do pray that You will act. Please act in mighty ways and reveal Your glory to this sickened world. Let those of us who are called by Your name no longer be distracted with what is petty and transient, but teach us Your statues and how we may walk in them as Your ambassadors here behind enemy lines. We are Your servants; do with us as You will. Use us to reach the lost, the hurting, the tormented.