I Believe I Shall See the Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living

The most comforting and the most challenging psalm for me is Psalm 27. It begins with an affirmative statement of belief and a defiant question: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” The last two verses, though, are where the difficulty comes, and I pray the penultimate verse through gritted teeth: “I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Is it a declaration of faith? Is it a determined statement of a desperate hope (I haven’t seen it yet, but I believe I shall see it? Will my utterance make it so?)? And it concludes with a repeated command: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Is the psalmist writing to me? Are they writing to convince themselves?

I’d like to know, because I’m waiting—I’m waiting to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. There is a famine in South Sudan. Wait. A war of aggression in Ukraine, where the weapons aren’t just bombs but executions, rape, and kidnapping. We wait. The devastation of schools, hospitals, and residential buildings in Gaza by American-manufactured bombs. We wait. Closer to home, immigrants are being torn from their families and kidnapped by our own government. Wait. At the end of 2024, there were 633 verified homeless people in Greater New Haven on the list for housing. And they are waiting. And I am waiting. And we are waiting. And waiting for what? A miracle? Divine intervention? For justice to roll down like water (Amos 5:24)? To see the goodness of the Lord—not in heaven, but here, in the land of the living? What would that even look like?

When Mr. Rogers was a little boy and he saw something inexplicably tragic, when no explanation on earth or in heaven would suffice, his mother would tell him, “Always look for the helpers.” And maybe, just maybe, this is the goodness of the Lord. God’s omnipotence is not that of a distant puppet master, or a king sitting on a throne looking down on us, but an unstoppable force of radical, all-powerful love that works in and through us. Maybe, like the psalmist, our God is an impossibly hopeful God—maybe, while we are waiting on God, God is waiting on us. To be the helpers. To be mercy for one another. To embody hope. To give abundant love to both our closest friends and to complete strangers. To work for the Kingdom to come, not in some apocalyptic future, but here and now. This, I think, this: this is where I can see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. With God’s help, may we work to make it so.