The song presented in Psalm 40 takes place in two large movements: first, a glad recollection of God’s saving help in the past (Psalm 40:1-10), and second, a strong plea for God’s saving help with a current problem (40:11-15).

So the psalm begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure” (40:1-2). The exact nature of this desolation is not given; but the psalm compares it to sinking helplessly in a muddy swamp, where I could only escape if God pulls me out. And it required patience: which is to say, God did not enact this rescue instantaneously: it required waiting. That’s difficult for us. We are not good at waiting patiently for God to rescue us.

And the psalmist isn’t either, in the second section: “O Lord, make haste to help me” (40:13). “Do not delay, O my God” (40:17). The problem is that there are people “who seek to snatch away my life” and “who desire my hurt” (40:14). And the psalmist is honest enough to admit that some of the problem comes from personal sin: “my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see” (40:12). As we sing in the hymn O Jesus, I Have Promised, “my foes are ever near me, around me and within.”

The psalmist’s testimony to God’s earlier rescue has two additional effects. The first is this: it touches the hearts of others and moves them to “put their trust in the Lord” (40:3). The reason that it can do this is that the psalmist lets them know what God has done: rather than keep it hidden, “I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation” (40:10). And the second effect is this: it moves my own heart into deeper relationship with God: “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (40:8). And this is the hope for the psalmist’s present crisis as well: “may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the Lord!’ ” (40:16).

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Help us and save us, O Lord! Draw us up from the swamps where we get ourselves bogged down: rescue us from the enemies that seek to hurt or humiliate us. We are ready to give glad testimony of your deliverance, to touch the hearts of others, and to deepen our own love toward you.