From Sigh To Song

Psalm 13 opens with a prayer that is almost uncomfortable to hear read out loud:

“How long, O Lord?

Will You forget me forever?

How long will You hide Your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

Four times in two verses, David asks the same question: How long?

This is not polished.

This is not composed for public worship.

This is what comes out when the door is closed and no one else is in the room.

David is not wondering if God exists. He is wondering if God remembers. There is a difference.

He does not say, “Are You there?” He says, “Have You forgotten me?”

Then he goes further: “Will You hide Your face from me?”

That is covenant language.

In the Old Testament, when God’s face shines on someone, it means favor.

It means nearness.

It means protection.

“The Lord make His face shine upon you…”

But when God’s face is hidden — it means distance.

Silence.

Withdrawal.

David feels not only unnoticed…

but deliberately avoided.

Here is what makes this so important:

He says it to God.

He does not say it about God.

He does not whisper it to someone else.

He does not bottle it up in spiritual politeness.

He brings the accusation into the presence of the One he feels has gone silent.

That — strangely — is faith.

Because unbelief walks away.

But lament walks toward.

---000---

Waiting Is the Hardest Part

Most of us can survive pain.

People endure surgery.

They endure loss.

They endure diagnosis.

They endure long nights and hard recoveries.

What begins to unravel us is not pain itself —

it is waiting.

Unexplained waiting.

Unresolved waiting.

Unending waiting.

Waiting for test results.

Waiting for a job offer.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting for a prodigal to come home.

Waiting for a marriage to heal.

Waiting for grief to lift.

Waiting for a prayer to move from heaven’s voicemail into heaven’s action.

Pain hurts.

But delay destabilizes.

Because pain says something is wrong.

Delay says nothing at all.

And silence leaves us alone with our thoughts.

David says:

“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”

That phrase — wrestle with my thoughts — literally means:

to take counsel within my own soul.

In other words:

I am stuck in my own head.

Have you ever noticed that when heaven is quiet, your mind gets loud?

You begin to interpret everything:

This must be punishment.

God must be disappointed.

Maybe I didn’t pray correctly.

Maybe I didn’t believe strongly enough.

Maybe I’m being ignored.

Maybe this is permanent.

And with every passing day, sorrow stops being an event…

and starts becoming an atmosphere.

Day after day.

Morning comes — still no answer.

Night falls — still no change.

You wake up hoping something has shifted.

It hasn’t.

---000---

Scripture Is Honest About Waiting

Abraham waited decades for Isaac.

Joseph waited years in prison for a dream he did not understand.

Israel waited four hundred years in Egypt for a promise that felt forgotten.

David himself waited in caves while Saul hunted him like an animal.

Jeremiah waited in a pit for relief that did not come.

And John the Baptist — who once pointed to Jesus and said,

“Behold, the Lamb of God” —

later sent messengers asking:

“Are You the One who is to come…

or should we expect someone else?”

Even Martha waited.

Four days.

And by the time Jesus arrived, she said:

“Lord… if You had been here…”

Which is another way of saying:

Where were You?

---000---

God Often Answers Slowly — On Purpose

And this is the part we do not like to say out loud:

Sometimes God delays — deliberately.

Not because He is indifferent.

Not because He is distracted.

But because time is part of how He forms trust.

We assume faith is built in the answer.

But Scripture suggests faith is built in the interval.

Between prayer

and provision.

Between promise

and fulfillment.

Between “Lord, help”

and “It is finished.”

Anyone can trust when the sea parts.

Faith grows while the waves are still rising.

Anyone can worship when Lazarus walks out of the tomb.

Faith is formed on day three…

when the stone has not yet been moved.

Waiting stretches us into people who trust God not for what He does —

but for who He is.

And that is the shift Psalm 13 is moving toward.

But David is not there yet.

Right now — he is still sighing.

“How long, O Lord?”

---000--- THE SILENCE

After the questions come the requests.

And notice how simple they are.