INTRODUCTION
I would like us to turn our attention today to the Book of Psalms. My hope is that we will get to learn something from the psalmist with regards to what our perspectives should be when it comes to this whole issue of pain & suffering.
Most of us are probably more familiar with those psalms which are widely known as the psalms of praise or the psalms of thanksgiving, where the moods of these psalms are generally quite upbeat. For today, however, we are going to be looking at a different category of psalms, namely, the psalms of lament, where the mood is a lot less upbeat.
And the psalm we are going to look at today is Psalm 13, one of the more well-known psalms of lament, which starts off with the phrase, “How Long O Lord,” a phrase which is repeated four times. Some have therefore called this “the howling psalm.”
Incidentally, Don Carson has written a book which is also titled, “How Long O Lord: Reflections on Suffering & Evil.” At the beginning of the book, he recounted this real-life story.
A pastor is cutting his front lawn. He looks up from his task just in time to see a heavy dump truck back out of his neighbor’s driveway - right over the neighbor’s 18-month-old son, who had been squatting behind the huge tires. The pastor accompanies the hysterical parents to the hospital in the ambulance. There is no hope for the little boy; he has been crushed beyond recognition.
The question is asked: “Where is God? Where is God when this happened?” Another real-life story… this time as told by James Dobson in his book, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense.”
In 1961, Dr Paul Carlson went on a medical mission trip to the Congo. He later returned back to his practice in California but found that he couldn’t forget those hopeless people he had encountered in Africa. He said this to a colleague, “If you could only see the need, you wouldn’t be able to swallow your sandwich.” So not long after, he moved his whole family back to Africa where he set up a makeshift clinic, operating at times by flashlight and making house calls on his motorbike.
Two years later, civil war broke out. Dr Carlson was among a group of Americans held captive by a rebel faction who was using them as political pawns. During their captivity, there came an opportunity for them to escape by climbing over a wall. Dr Carlson actually managed to reach the top of this wall and was a split second from freedom when a burst of bullets took him down. With that, Dr Carlson’s humanitarian commitment to the people of Congo came to a tragic end. He left behind a loving wife and 2 children.
And we are left to ask the question, “Why Lord?” Why couldn’t You have distracted the gunman for another instant? An insect in front of his nose or some sweat in his eyes could have changed the outcome! But no such distraction occurred!
Back in our church, we have all been praying for a dear sister. Two years ago, in Sep 2007, she went through a brain tumor surgery but didn’t wake up after the operation. And up till today, she continues to lie in a hospital bed, in a coma. Many of us, myself included, found ourselves inevitably posing this question to the Lord, “How long O Lord? How long more will it take before You wake her up from her coma?”
Questions
Those of us who have lived long enough would have experienced, in one form or another, and in different degrees, the reality of pain and suffering – be it a personal tragedy, illness, failures or disappointments. And if we are completely honest with ourselves, I am sure that when we were struggling through such times of pain and suffering, the following are some of the questions we would have asked of the Lord,
Where were You O Lord when this accident happen?
Why O Lord did You allow this tragedy to take place?
How long O Lord must I go through this pain & suffering?
Philip Yancey, in his book “Disappointment with God” said this,
These questions are lodged somewhere inside all of us, yet few people ask them aloud, for they seem at best impolite, at worst heretical.
But consider this with me - is it really inappropriate for us to ask such questions of God? I mean, if you have read through the Bible, you would have realised that such questions were also asked by many of its writers. David, for example, asked God the following questions in the psalm we are looking at today, “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?” And in Psalm 22, David also penned these very words which were later echoed by Jesus as He was hanging on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help?”
Taking a closer look at the other biblical characters, we find that many of them were really no different from David when it comes to being totally honest with God. The prophet Elijah said this in 1 Kings 17:20, “O Lord my God, why have You brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?” And Moses also protested to God with these words in Exodus 5:22, “O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me?”
Learning from the Psalms
Why O Lord?
Why did it have to happen this way?
Why me? Why now? Why this?
I’m sure you have encountered occasions when such questions were directed towards God but somehow He chose to remain silent or absent. What then are we to do? How should we relate to God when He doesn’t seem to respond to our need for an answer to our suffering?
And this is where I believe the psalms of lament can provide us with some help as to how we are to respond to God. The psalmists are also often not given the answers to the questions they asked regarding their sufferings. And yet we find that they are still able to keep their faith in Him and even continuing to praise God while their circumstances remain unchanged.
And this is what I hope we can learn from David as we look at Psalm 13 regarding how we are to relate to God while we struggle with our ongoing pain. And these are the 3 lessons I hope we can pick up from Psalm 13 today:
In times of suffering, we need to keep faith with God by:
1. Coming to Him in Our Pain (verse 1-2)
2. Crying Out Our Plea to Him (verses 3-4)
3. Choosing to Give Him Our Praise (verse 5-6)
COMING TO GOD IN OUR PAIN (Verses 1-2)
How Long O Lord?
Look first with me at verses 1 & 2,
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 every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
“How long O Lord?” This question was posed by David to God four times within the first two verses of this psalm. It is pretty obvious that David was clearly going through something for which he was probably telling God this, “Lord, I really cannot take it anymore! Whatever you are putting me through, I don’t think I can take it any longer! Can You please tell me how long more must I go through all this suffering?”
David’s Pain
What exactly was David going through that had made him come to God and let go of all his frustrations and agony in this manner? We can’t say for sure. But David could have written this psalm during the time when he was being pursued by King Saul and was hiding from cave to cave as a fugitive.
If that was indeed the scenario, then this could very well be how David must have felt as he poured out his pain to God,
God, my enemy is chasing me all over the shop.
And honestly, I’m getting very tired and feeling totally miserable!
Lord, why is this happening?
And how long more must I endure all this?
Is this going to take forever?
God, aren’t You supposed to be on my side?
Then why aren’t You doing anything about this?
Or have You forgotten all about me, the one whom You’ve chosen to be Your next king?
Could it be that you have changed your mind?
Or perhaps You have gotten somebody else instead, which is why You are hiding Your face from me?
God, do You know exactly what I am going through?
Can You feel the pain I’m experiencing?
I feel ignored by You Lord! I feel totally abandoned!
David’s pain is captured by these two key questions in Psalm 13, “Have You forgotten me? Why do You turn Your face away from me?” These questions were also asked in another of his psalm, Psalm 10, “Why, O Lord, do You stand far away? And why do you hide Yourself in times of trouble?”
Where Are You, God?
This is probably the most difficult issue many of us will struggle with in our times of suffering - and that is the issue of God’s apparent absence, “Where are You God? Where are You when it hurts?”
This was the same question many Americans asked in the aftermath of the Sep 11th terrorist attack in US where close to 3000 innocent lives were lost, “Where was God when all of this was going on?”
This sense of crying out in desperation and not getting any response from a God who seems to be absent and distant, or worse still, who seems to have ignored and abandoned us in our times of pain - it is well captured by CS Lewis who wrote these words in the midst of deep grief after his wife’s death from cancer. In his book “A Grief Observed” CS Lewis said this,
Where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him… you will be, or so it feels, welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.
Is that what you are feeling right now? A sense of God being silent and hidden? That He might have forgotten all about you - the feelings of being abandoned by God as you go through the suffering on your own?
If that describes what you are feeling right now, can I say this to you, “Join the club!” You are probably not the only one feeling this way! And the fact is you don’t have to feel bad about having such feelings at all. As we’ve seen earlier, many have also felt this way and in particular, David himself!
Psalms of Lament
We are thankful that David had chosen to document exactly how he felt about God in many of his psalms of lament - very much like a spiritual journal - and using these psalms as a means of directing his grievances and complaints to God. And that is precisely why the lament psalms are included in our Bible. God knows that we need laments because we need a way of dealing with strong negative emotions. In fact, out of the 150 psalms in the Old Testament, there are actually more lament psalms than any of the other types of psalms - almost 60 to be exact.
Unlike many parts of the Bible which speak to us, the psalms essentially speak for us, that is, they help us articulate and express what we feel. And not only do they speak for us, they also speak to God, that is, the psalms help us to rightfully bring to God what we feel about Him, and in the case of lament psalms, to bring to God our anger, bitterness, resentment and protest. In other words, the psalms actually give us permission to be honest with what we really think and feel, and to express to God, respectfully, and to God only, the pain and suffering that many of us face in this life.
I like how Old Testament scholar Mark Futato explains this,
Through the psalms God allows us as His children to scream out our most agonizing questions in His presence, “Why O Lord? How long O Lord? O Lord where is Your former great love?” Such language is not off limits in prayer but is welcomed by a Father who, somewhere in His mysterious love, has a place for suffering. The psalms help us get through those dark valleys of perplexity where God cannot be seen and His ways cannot be understood.
Brothers & sisters, in times of suffering, don’t turn away from God in bitterness but learn to come to Him in our pain. Learn to bring to Him all of our hurts. God can cope with all of our questions and doubts. He has a high threshold of tolerance for what needs to be said in all honesty through our prayers. As writer Philip Greenslade puts it,
God prefers that we burden Him with our negative emotions than poison our own souls by internalizing them or abuse other people by treating them as emotional garbage cans.
CRYING OUT OUR PLEA TO GOD (Verses 3-4)
Look, Answer, Give Light
In times of suffering, not only must we not turn away but learn to come to God in our pain, we must also learn to cry out our plea to Him and bring all our prayers before Him.
One preacher puts it this way, “Lament is useless if it doesn’t lead to prayer.” And this is exactly what David did next. After protesting to God and pouring out his pain before Him, he now pleads with God and cries out for God to look at him, to answer him and to revive and restore him. Look with me at verses 3-4,
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to 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 (when I fall)
As we’ve seen earlier from verses 1 & 2, David was going through a very trying time but what really made his pain unbearable was God’s apparent absence and silence. And so what we find David doing here is this, firstly, he pleaded passionately for God to look at him, “Look at me Lord, turn Your face towards me God! Please don’t hide Your face from me anymore!”
Secondly, he pleaded passionately for God to answer him, “Answer me Lord! You have forgotten me long enough! Please don’t keep silent any longer!”
And thirdly, he pleaded passionately for God to keep him alive, “Give light to my eyes Lord! Can you see the light going out from my eyes? If you don’t do something soon, I’m going to end up dead, both spiritually and probably physically too! Then my enemies - and they are also Your enemies - they will be the ones having the last laugh!”
Responding to God’s Absence
For those of us going through a time of difficulty - maybe you were hit by the financial crisis and you’re still suffering its consequences, or maybe you’ve just experienced a tragedy, or perhaps you’ve been afflicted with an illness, and you are finding that God is especially far-away or that He’s been particularly quiet - there are basically two responses we can adopt with regards to this sense of abandonment.
We can either tell God, “OK God, since you want to ignore me, I can also ignore You! Two can play this game!” Or we can go to God and cry out to Him with these words, “Look at me Lord! I need to see Your face again! Answer me Lord, I need to hear from You! I don’t know how I can go on without You Lord!”
Well, David did just that, as we’ve seen in Psalm 13, and likewise, so did someone by the name of Sonny Dewey, a.k.a. the Apostle. In the 1997 movie “The Apostle,” actor Robert Duvall played the role of Sonny Dewey, a charismatic Pentecostal minister who was leading a large church in Texas.
All was well until he discovered that his wife was having an affair with the youth minister. Both the wife and her lover then conspired to remove Sonny from the church and they succeeded. And so Sonny was forced to leave the church which he had lovingly built up over the years.
Sonny’s world came crashing down. He felt betrayed! But what did he do in such circumstances? Like David, he turned immediately to God in prayer, pleading passionately with Him and crying out honestly his anger and pain to God (see video clip).
We all heard what Sonny’s mother said about him, “Ever since he was a little boy, he’s always talk to Jesus!” As the clip showed us, especially when our world comes crashing down, we must all the more always talk to Jesus. He must the first person we cry out our plea to! So brothers & sisters, we must let lament lead us to God and we must always let our pain lead us to pray!
CHOOSING TO GIVE GOD OUR PRAISE (Verses 5-6)
A Change of Mood & Perspective
My final point - in times of suffering, let’s learn to keep faith in God by choosing to give Him our praise. We have seen in Psalm 13 how David first came to God in his pain and lament (verses 1-2), and how he then let his lament lead him to cry out his plea and prayer to God (verses 3-4). And now in verses 5-6, we are going see how David chose to finally let his lament be turned into praise. Look with me at verses 5-6,
But I trust in Your steadfast (constant/unfailing) love;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
For He has been good to me.
Did you notice in these verses a sudden shift in David’s tone and mood? First it was, “How long O Lord?” Then it became, “O Lord, please answer me!” But now it is, “But I trust, I shall rejoice and I will sing!”
What had happened? What was it that made David change his feelings from his earlier mood of doom and gloom to this completely different feel of hope and confidence? As far as the psalm is concerned, there is no indication of any change of circumstances. David was probably still being pursued by Saul and it’s likely that he was still hiding from cave to cave. So what actually changed? Answer? Perspective! A change of perspective is what had led to this change of mood for David!
Hesed
And do you know what was it that motivated David to change his whole perspective of his circumstances? Answer? God’s unchanging love!
What had taken place from verse 4 to verse 5 is that, rather than focusing on his problems, David had now decided to fix his eyes on the unchanging love of God. He started verse 5 with an emphatic word, “BUT” and he went go to declare, “BUT I trust in Your unchanging & unfailing love!”
What David was basically saying is this, “In spite of what I am going through, and in spite of Your apparent absence and silence, Lord, I choose to believe in who You are and I choose to trust in Your love!”
David was not trying to deny his situation nor was he trying to pretend that all of his problems had disappeared suddenly or completely. No, he was still going through very trying circumstances. But in declaring that he wanted to trust in God & in His love, David had basically chosen not to let the state of his suffering determine his perspective of God, nor let his circumstances dictate how he should relate to God. Someone puts it this way,
David chose to interpret his circumstances by God’s love rather than to interpret God’s love by his circumstances.
The English word which is used here for God’s love is the word, hesed, in Hebrew. This is a very important word which actually carries with it the meaning of loyalty or allegiance, rather than just an emotion. Hesed has everything to do with God’s commitment to a covenantal relationship with us. And as part of that covenant, which was made through Jesus Christ, God is committed to always love us and to forever be our God regardless of our circumstances.
So what’s the implication of all this? How does trusting in God’s hesed or covenantal love, tie in with the pain and suffering that we are going through? Marva Dawn, in her book titled “I’m Lonely, Lord - How Long?” said that in whipping out this one word hesed towards the end of the psalm, David was basically providing for himself the answers to all of the “how long” questions he had posed to God at the beginning of the psalm, namely,
How long will You forget me?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long must I bear this sorrow?
How long must I face this opposition?
Marva Dawn explains,
This word hesed answers these questions in the psalm. The unfailing steadfastness of hesed tells us for sure that God has not forgotten us, not for a moment; nor will He ever. The nature of hesed is that God will never withdraw His support from us. It may seem so when He does not grant us what we ask or take away our sorrow, but His infinite love is always present with us and on our behalf.
Will God ever forget us, especially when we are going through hard times? No, my friends! God’s nature is such that it just won’t allow Him to do so! Which is why He said this in Isaiah 49:15-16a,
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.
And likewise, God’s character is such that it will also not allow Him to hide from His children or abandon us when we are experiencing severe trials. Again, listen to what God said in Isaiah 41:10,
So do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
Who is God?
Like David, it is quite inevitable for us to ask God many questions when we going through pain and suffering. It is only natural. But at the end of the day, it is not really a matter of whether we will get to know the answers to these questions. What ultimately matters more than anything is whether we really know the One who has the answers to all of our questions.
If there is one person who is entitled to an answer from God about his sufferings more than anyone of us here, surely it’s got to be Job. Job probably suffered more than anyone we know on this earth and he did ask God for an answer. And we would expect that God will be quite sympathetic and owe it to Job to try and explain to him why He had allowed Job to suffer. But guess what happened when God showed up? This is the essence of what God said to Job,
“Job, you want to know why you are suffering?
I could tell you but you won’t understand!
So Job, trust Me! I Am your God the Creator!”
And do you know what Job said in response? “My ears had heard of You! But now my eyes have seen You!” God didn’t give Job any explanation but Job was satisfied! The point is this - Job didn’t need any explanation in the end because his whole focus was forced to shift from “the why to the who.” Job knew now that his hope comes, not from what he understands, but in who he trusts.
This also reminds me of something I read from Joni Eareckson’s book “A Step Further” where she recounted this story,
A father who lost his son in a brutal murder once wrote to me, “Joni, I used to have a million questions for God and no answers. I still don’t have all the answers, but you know what? I don’t have any more questions. Knowing Him is enough.”
Give Him Praise
My friends, when we choose to go for the “who” rather than the “why” answers in our times of suffering, I am confident that God will reveal Himself to us and He’ll help us know Him and also experience His love for us. As such, even though the storms may continue to rage, and the hurts and pains may still persist, and we do not know how long more the suffering will last, but because we know who He is, we know we can trust in Him.
And because we know who He is, we must therefore also choose to give Him praise, knowing that His hesed, unfailing love will last forever regardless of what we are going through. There is a beautiful song that’s written by Andy Park called “Yet I Will Praise You.” I want to read you the lyrics because this song describes very well this last point of today’s sermon,
I will praise You, Lord my God
Even in my brokenness, I will praise You Lord
I will praise You, Lord my God
Even in my desperation, I will praise You Lord
And I can't understand all that You allow
I just can't see the reason,
But my life is in Your hands
And though I cannot see You
I choose to trust You
Even when my heart is torn, I will praise you Lord
Even when I feel deserted, I will praise You Lord
Even in the darkest valley I will praise You Lord
And when my world is shattered
And it seems all hope is gone
Yet I will praise You Lord
CONCLUSION
In closing, I like to invite all of us to open both our ears and eyes, to listen and to watch this video clip as we reflect on Psalm 13. This is a song based on Psalm 13, music composed by Brian Doerksen, lyrics written by King David, and the video created by my daughter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AT7wa0tPVU
How long O Lord, will You forget me
How long O Lord, will You look the other way
How long O Lord, must I wrestle with my thoughts
And everyday, have such sorrow in my heart
Look on me and answer, O God my Father
Bring light to my darkness, before they see me fall
But I trust, in Your unfailing love
Yes my heart will rejoice
Still I sing, of Your unfailing love
You have been good
You will be good to me
