Psalm 13
Lectionary Reading Proper 8 Year A
1 How long, O Lord?will you forget me for ever? *how long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long shall I have perplexity in my mind,and grief in my heart, day after day? *how long shall my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look upon me and answer me, O Lord my God; *give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
4 Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” *and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.
5 But I put my trust in your unfailing love; *my heart is joyful because of your saving help.
6 I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt with me richly; *I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.
The phrase, “hide your face” is used often in the psalms. It is a way of describing how we feel when God seems silent and oblivious to our distress. I think that I am not too different from most of us in that I seek God’s face more passionately when I am troubled. When life has my back against the wall and I need to be rescued, I cry out to God more than when all is just flowing along. In my humanness I am like a small child and I want God’s attention immediately and I want him to fix things that perhaps I have messed up or that have just seemingly happened to me. When I get no relief or the suffering worsens, it feels like God is not listening and is hiding his face from me.
Being made in God’s image, I can take heart that God is not ignoring my suffering. God takes no pleasure in my suffering. God feels the impulse to rescue me. But God refrains from that impulse. Suffering and struggle is what is necessary to make us strong and wise. Suffering and struggle are the laboratories which bear compassion, empathy and mercy within us. We cannot become mature and complete if we do not let suffering run its course.
The psalmist here is suffering and has been suffering for a while.(v1) He can’t understand why God is allowing it to continue and what good can possibly come from it.(v2-4) But something changes in v5-6. Something reminds him that he can trust God, His love never fails. Whatever might be happening to us, no matter what it feels like and when we can’t understand what’s going on, we can’t take comfort in knowing that God’s love is perfect and even amidst our struggles,(Romans 8:28) our heart can swell with joy to the point of bursting into song, praising the goodness of God. God was never hiding His face from him, perhaps he just felt that way because he was focused on his problems and suffering and misery. And perhaps when he focused on God’s unfailing love, he saw that God is with him and always has been and he is now able to rejoice in his sufferings.(Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4)