There was a time when someone spoke Psalm 27:13 over me, praying “that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.” Not just someday in heaven. Not just once I was free from the pain of this world. Here. In the middle of the brokenness I was drowning in.
At the time, I couldn’t receive it. I couldn’t even imagine it. I believed in God’s goodness … for other people. For the ones whose prayers seemed to get answers, whose lives looked stitched together. But not for me. The absence of joy felt like a final verdict in my life, and all I could see was sorrow. Hopelessness kept me stuck, rooted in despair.
Hannah knew that kind of sorrow too. We see in 1 Samuel 1 how she longed for a child, but year after year, her womb remained closed. In her anguish, she poured out her soul before the Lord - weeping bitterly, praying silently. But Hannah kept showing up. She believed, even in her pain, that she would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And in time, she did. She gave birth to Samuel, who would become one of Israel’s greatest prophets.
In fact, Samuel anointed King David, whose words in Psalm 27 echo Hannah’s story. She could have let the silence of unanswered prayers convince her that God had forgotten her. But instead she clung to hope. And she witnessed God’s goodness.
Hope can feel fragile when life is loud with pain. Sometimes it seems safer to brace ourselves for disappointment than to believe God’s goodness might actually break through in our lifetime, in our story, in our ache.
Maybe, like me, you’ve found yourself in that gray space where it feels like hope has packed its bags and moved on without you. You still whisper prayers, or maybe even shout, but heaven seems to hold its breath. You hear others testifying to answered prayers and overflowing blessings, and you quietly wonder, What about me?
Psalm 27:13 offers a lifeline: “I would have despaired had I not believed …”
What did David believe? That goodness was coming. Not just in eternity but here. On this side of heaven. God is not done. This chapter isn’t the whole story.