How Long Oh Lord?

In Psalm 13 David wrote,

“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

Have you ever felt alone? Have you ever felt abandoned? We often hide those feelings…especially if they are spiritual. I mean, we hide it if we think God has abandoned us. Spurgeon spoke of the Psalms and he said, when you dive into David’s psalms, you will somewhere or other see yourself. You never get into a corner, but you find David in that corner. He said, I’ve never been so low that David wasn’t lower, and I’ve never been so high that I couldn’t find David still higher. That’s what I love about David…we can see him at the top and we can see him at the bottom. Today’s psalm is one of those bottom times, but while it begins with winter it ends with summer!

Kidner said the three pairs of verses in this psalm climb up from the depths to a fine vantage point of confidence and hope. Each set of two verses takes us up from David’s sorrow to David’s song. Let’s walk through these six verses over the next few days.