Will You Forget Me Forever? – Psalm 13

I was feeling like I had every right to ask God to take away my pain and heal me, but as the pain endured my confidence in God’s willingness to help me waned.  I gave up asking God to help me and woke my wife to take me to the hospital (which is what God probably wanted me to do).  They would help me if He wouldn’t.  Sound petty or childish?  I suppose it was.  When we’re suffering it is hard to act maturely.  Did David?

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

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.  (Psalm 13 ESV)

Every believer has yearned for God’s deliverance from their woes the delay of which deliverance seems to stretch them beyond their capacity to endure.  We have wrestled with what seems to be the fact that God has forgotten us or doesn’t care.  And in our hearts we have said, “If I were God I would have already acted to remove the suffering of the one I love.”  David is wrestling with the same thing and he asks the question that burdens his heart, “How long?”

But then David appeals again to Yahweh to deliver him and keep his enemies from rejoicing over his demise.  He asserts his trust in Yahweh’s steadfast love and anticipates Yahweh’s salvation and a time of singing to Him in testimony to His deliverance.  There may be times when God’s deliverance is not the one we wanted, but He will never fail to deal faithfully with us.