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“Hope that Doesn’t Hurry”

Psalm 40:1-11

Rev. Rebecca DePoe

January 18, 2026

Storyteller Karen Blixen once said, “any sorrow can be borne if it can be made into a story.” Stories help us make sense of what we have lived through. They give shape to experiences that might otherwise feel chaotic or overwhelming. Most of us instinctively reach for stories when something hard happens. Because stories offer us a beginning, a middle, and an end. They reassure us that what we are living though is not meaningless, and that it will not last forever.

But real life, as we all know, does not always move neatly from beginning to middle to end. Some seasons stretch on longer than we expected. Some chapters refuse to resolve. And some stories leave us sitting in the middle for a very long time. Unsure of how- or when- they will turn.

Psalm 40 is one of those Scriptures that tells the truth about that kind of faith. It is not a victory speech. It is not a before and after testimonial. It is the prayer of someone who has waited, who has cried out, who has stood in uncertain ground- and who is still learning how to hope.

This morning, I want to reflect on psalm 40 as a story. A story about waiting. A story about being steadied. And a story about a hope that does not hurry us toward resolution, but holds us while we remain in the middle.

The psalm begins with these words: I waited patiently for the Lord; God inclined to me and heard my cry.”

That first line alone is worth sitting with. I waited.

Not briefly. Not calmly. Not confidently. I waited.

Waiting, in Scripture, is rarely passive. It is often exhausting. Waiting means staying present when nothing is moving. It means continuing to show up without any guarantee that the situation will change. Waiting is not a lack of faith- it is often the truest expression of it.

Most of us know what it is like to wait on God- not just for answers, but for relief, for clarity, for something to finally shift. We wait for conversations to go better than they have. We wait for systems to improve. We wait for relationships to heal. We wait for our lives to feel more stable than they currently do.

And when that waiting stretches on, it can begin to feel like a pit.

The psalmist gives us language for that too”

God lifted me out of the pit, out of the much and mire.

Some pits are dramatic. But many are not. Many pits are quiet and repetitive. They are the accumulation of fatigue. The slow erosion of hope. The sense that you are doing all the right things, and yet nothing is changing.

There are seasons when the pit is not a crisis, but a grind. Where each day looks a lot like the one before it. Where nothing is technically “wrong” but nothing feels particularly solid either. Where you are not falling apart- but you are also not standing on firm ground.

Grief can do that. So can burnout. So can prolonged uncertainty. So can carrying responsibility without enough support. So can waiting for something to end that hasn’t ended yet.

The psalmist does not pretend that faith eliminates those experiences. Instead, faith gives us language to name them.

What happens next in the psalm is subtle but important. The psalmist does not say that God erased the memory of the pit. The psalmist says:

God set my feet upon a rock and made my steps secure.

This is not about being lifted into the clouds. It is about being steadied. About regaining your footing. About moving from instability to enough support to stand.

Sometimes God’s grace does not remove us from difficult circumstances. Sometimes grace looks like stability in the middle of them. Sometimes it looks like being about to take the next step- even when the destination remains unclear.

I have learned, over time, that God often does not hurry us out of the pit, Instead, God meets us there- and slowly, patiently, gives us ground firm enough to stand on.

One of the ways God does this, Psalm 40 reminds us, is through other people.

The psalmist says, Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.

Not Blessed is the one who figures it out alone.

But those-plural- who trust together.

There have been seasons in my life when I did not need someone to fix things for me. I needed people who could stay. People who could remember what was true when I could not. People who could hold the shape of my life steady when everything felt a little wobbly.

Sometimes community does not rescues us from the pit. Sometimes community keeps us from disappearing into it.

The psalm continues:

God put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

Notice the order. The new song comes after the waiting. After the crying out. After the steadying. Praise is not demanded at the beginning of the story. It grows out of being held.

There are seasons when we cannot sing for ourselves. When our voices are tired. When our hearts are heavy. In those moments, the gathered community becomes a kind of choir. Singing on our behalf, praying when we cannot find the words, reminding us that God’s promises still stand.

And sometimes the new song is not loud. Sometimes it is quiet. Sometimes it is unfinished. Sometimes it is simply the ability to keep showing up.

Hope, after all, does not always sound like joy. Sometimes hope sounds like endurance.

The psalmist goes on to say something that feels especially important for us to hear: Sacrifice and offering you do not desire… but you have given me an open ear.

God is not impressed by religious performance. God is not waiting for us to get our act together. God is listening.

Faith, in Psalm 40, is not about doing more. It is about being honest. About opening ourselves to God’s presence in the midst of real life, not idealized spirituality.

This psalm reminds us that God desires not perfection, but presence. Not speed, but faithfulness. Not polished testimony, but truth.

The psalm ends with continued trust in God:

Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your steadfast love and faithfulness keep me safe forever.

Even at the end, the psalmist is still asking. Still waiting. Still trusting.

That, I think, is one of the greatest gifts of Psalm 40. It refuses to pretend that faith means everything is resolved. Instead, it bears witness to a God who stays.

Friends, we live in a world that is constantly trying to hurry us. Hurry us toward answers. Hurry us toward optimism. Hurry us toward closure. But the God we meet in Psalm 40 is not a hurried God.

This is a God who inclines toward our cries.

A God who steadies us rather than rushes us.

A God whose hope is strong enough to last.

Hope that doesn’t hurry is not weak hope.

It is resilient hope.

It is hope that trusts God’s presence even when the outcome is still unknown.

And that, perhaps, is the good news for us this morning.

We do not have to rush our grief.

We do not have to hurry our healing.

We do not have to resolve what is still unfolding.

God hears us.

God steadies us.

God stays with us.

We need Jesus and we need each other. Not to fix everything. But to stand together, on whatever solid ground we can find, trusting that the God who hears our cries is still at work.

Thanks be to God.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.