When is my change going to come?

Psalm 30:5 For his anger [endureth but] a moment; in his favour [is] life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy [cometh] in the morning.

This is one of the most frequently quoted verses in the Bible. It gives hope and encouragement to those in the midst of trials and tribulations. It reminds us that trouble won't last always. It inspires us to change our focus from tonight's weeping to tomorrow's joy.

But lets be honest. A "night" of weeping might last months or years. There is no biblical guarantee that we are only going to suffer for a mere 8 hours before our change comes.

We often think that we have dominion over time. We take for granted the fact that there are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year. We rely on that structure to schedule appointments and fill our days. We even know the exact moment every day that night turns into morning. 6:06 am today, to be exact.

It is that exact nicety that makes waiting patiently on the LORD such a delightful spiritual challenge in our day.

It forces us to stop asking the question, when will my change come. Because our time is not God's time. It's cliche, I know, but still sound doctrine.

Perhaps we should stop thinking of time in literal hours, and counting down the minutes until we are delivered from weeping into joy. What if we embraced our night of weeping as a phase, as a level of spirituality that we must experience before we are ready to cross over into morning, to attain higher spiritual heights.

Perhaps, while we are in the midst of a trying time, we strengthen ourselves with prayer and meditation. We feed our spirit with the Word of God. So that we are not just passively waiting on the LORD to turn night into day, but we are actively participating in our own transformation from weeping into joy.