Psalm 13: How long, O LORD?
How long, O LORD,
Will you forget me forever?
How long O LORD,
Will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts,
And every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long O LORD,
Will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me O LORD,
And answer me
O LORD my God,
Give light to my eyes,
Or I will sleep the sleep of death;
How long O LORD,
Will my foes rejoice when I fall?
How long will my enemy say,
"I have overcome him"?
But I will trust in your unfailing love,
And my heart will rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
For he’s been good to me.
Yes I’ll sing to the LORD,
For he’s been good to me.
And I will trust in his unfailing love,
And my heart will rejoice in my salvation.
Jeff Lowe: lead vocal, backing vocals, piano, guitars, percussion
Ann O’Hare: backing vocals
Tim O’Hare : bass guitar
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Writing about the psalms, John L Bell of the Iona Community wrote, “Side by side with expressions of deepest praise are cries of unfathomable despair. Both are not only acceptable to God, they are essential for our mental and spiritual health. So it is today when we walk in darkness, or wonder at the injustice of accidental death, or are pained by the sight of people we love withering away, we find an uncanny resonance in such words as ‘How long, O Lord, will you forget me’.”
Christian know that God never forgets them. Yet David’s statement of stark candour expresses how he feels. Now if we read to the end of this short psalm, we read how he is rejoicing in God’s unfailing love and salvation, and singing praises to God. This complete about-turn-in-six-verses demonstrates how unwise it is to take a single fragment of Scripture out of context.
Psalm 13 is a prayer. It starts with the honest expression of how the psalmist, and indeed we ourselves, sometimes feel . When the circumstances of our lives are truly desperate, and when the evil one is up close and saying, “I have overcome him”, we need to do what the psalmist did, and call on the Lord to answer our prayer and bring fresh light to our eyes and hope to our hearts.