In the land of the living

David starts with an admission most strong people never make out loud: I had fainted, unless. He came that close. The psalm that opened so confidently — the LORD is my light and my salvation — ends by showing the thread it all hung by. Even the giant-killer had a nearly point.

And what held him? Believing to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Not only in heaven, eventually — here, in this life, in the land of the living. Despair always argues that the good part of the story is over; David’s survival belief was that God’s goodness had future appearances scheduled on this side of eternity. Hold that expectation and you can walk through almost anything, because you are walking toward something.

Then the psalm turns and speaks directly to you — the only command in it: wait on the LORD. And knowing how long waiting gets, it says everything twice: wait, I say, on the LORD. Courage for the middle stretch, strength for the heart, and goodness still ahead in the land of the living. You have not seen the last of it.