READ: Ps. 13:1–6: How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? … Consider and hear me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death … But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
In Psalm 12 David expresses that he finds himself surrounded by a great majority of the wicked. This can produce feelings of desolation. Compare this with Elijah, who felt completely alone and in the wilderness asked the LORD that he might die.
In Psalm 13 David is even worse off: he feels himself abandoned even by God. For believers it can be a real struggle in difficult times to continue believing that the LORD is near to them even at their darkest moment. When the situation, in our judgment, has no prospect of improvement, we might in our despair doubt God’s regard for us and even God’s faithfulness, omnipotence, and guidance. We do not yet read the latter in this Psalm.
In his miserable situation David makes an urgent appeal to God no longer to hide His face from him. David struggles with the fact that as a favourite of the LORD he must endure so much evil. His sorrow goes beyond the evil itself. His sorrow is: where is the LORD and His salvation?
He comes with a penetrating, repeated “How long?” toward the LORD. He does not stop praying but shows that the LORD uses the emergency to cause him to continue testifying of his dependence on Him.
David thereby appeals to God’s promises of faithfulness: “But I have trusted in Your mercy.” His trust in God as the God of the covenant is so strong that he already speaks of his gratitude and great joy that will be there when God has delivered him.
David is here, inspired by the Holy Spirit, an example to us as a man after God’s own heart. As believers we may know far better than David that the LORD will never leave us, precisely because He did leave His only begotten Son. We therefore have even more reason never to doubt God’s help.
In what sense do we pray: Lord, how long?
Singing: Ps. 13:1,3