Evangelical Baptist Church

Psalm 13 is a lament—a category of prayer that you are surprised to find in the Bible, since there is in it the potential for God to be thought of poorly.  Here the psalmist is confused, impatient to the point of exasperation.  Four times he declaims, “How long?” to God.

We are not sure of the exact problem.  One thing jumps out: He’s stuck with his own thoughts, and deeply regrets it.  He’s “listened to his heart” and seeks more trustworthy direction.

Notice that the psalmist isn’t just trying to get the verse of the day downloaded to him.  No, things are a little more desperate.  If he doesn’t get the divine counsel soon, he falls into the sleep of death.

There are enemies too.  And one of the incentives for God to consider and answer is to quiet these rowdies.  The assumption is that the psalmist’s enemies are God’s enemies too.  When they are on top, both God and the psalmist appear at a loss.

So “how long?”

I want to be careful here because I observe that we fall into the trap of heading right for the dramatic and secretly loving the tragic.  But if the Psalter is (among other things) a guidebook to the life of faith, we know that it’s very possible we’ll sometimes sense that God has forgotten us.

We can also allow that this sense of abandonment might settle down on us, over lengthy periods.  Then, as we study our situation, examine our life from every aspect, it will seem incredible that God has left us in such weakness and befuddlement.

We who have been chosen by God from before the foundation of the world?  We the commissioned with such important directives?  We who have listened in to God’s disclosures on the invisible world and the future and the ancient past?  We united to the Savior who has borne the judgment of sin, who has passed through the shades, and come up into resurrection life?  We His younger siblings?

All those claims taunt me now.  Who did I suppose I was?  Well I know now what I am: sorrowful, fading, beaten—shaken.

Full Disclosure: More than I like, I fall into these dark thoughts of abandonment; taking Winston Churchill’s lead I call them “the black dog.”  Then let me alone;  leave me and the dog to enter Dunkin Donuts: to eat Boston Cremes and repine!

Why can’t I get on track?  Where is the saving from sin?  “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.”  I’m not asking for pity, God!  I simply want You to protect and improve what You said You’ve purchased…well, me!  I’m looking, but You’re hiding from me.

Hand me another donut!  How long?

If God would just turn the lights on for just a second—that I could get a little perspective!  Then I would know that something is happening in the background…that I’m being prepped or at least something is being staged…that there’s a point—even if it’s not me.  Just give me a clue as to what should I pray for?

Well, there’s the frustration.  But the prayer ends a little cheerfully.  Compared with the rest of the psalm, a lot cheerfully.  How does this happen?

Well, in prayer.  Prayer often clarifies things.  Dear People: Just.  Get.  To.  Praying.

Here after venting before God, the lights turn on, albeit dimly.  As he gets off his knees a thousand questions remain.  But the psalmist himself is able to put his distress in perspective by remembering a couple of things:

1. In the past he knew that God had rescued him on the way to some enduring, good plan for him.  If he experiences that deliverance, and that plan, one way before, and another way now—let it be.  The fact is, he is being saved.

2. God had in the past been generous to him; what makes this searing moment more real or defining than those moments?  And wouldn’t it make sense to believe that those generous moments, those moments of prosperity, betokened the big picture, since God is a loyal Savior?

I will sing to the LORD.