Our Common Prayerbook 13

“How long will this hassle or threat last?” is a very common question. David asks it four times in the space of two verses in Psalm 13 (after the jump). Actually David asks how long God will ignore him and how long he has to worry and how long his enemies will get to gloat over him.

So, we ask, what will say next to God? David moves to these words:

13:3 Look at me! Answer me, O Lord my God!

Revive me, or else I will die!

13:4 Then my enemy will say, “I have defeated him!”

Then my foes will rejoice because I am upended.

God should answer him or he’ll die, and he thinks God wants him alive. And he thinks God should hear him or the evil enemies will win and the faithful will lose. There is perhaps a hint of self-importance but that is all strapped up with confidence that God’s glory and God’s ways and God’s own promises and God’s own covenant faithfulness are at risk. I learn from this that we should appeal to God’s own glory — in its many dimensions — when we intercede for others and offer God our requests.

Somehow the mood shifts: David tells God aloud that he will trust in God’s utter reliability as he anticipates God’s deliverance. Remarkable shift.

For the music director; a psalm of David.

13:1 How long, Lord, will you continue to ignore me?

How long will you pay no attention to me?

13:2 How long must I worry,

and suffer in broad daylight?

How long will my enemy gloat over me?

13:3 Look at me! Answer me, O Lord my God!

Revive me, or else I will die!

13:4 Then my enemy will say, “I have defeated him!”

Then my foes will rejoice because I am upended.

13:5 But I trust in your faithfulness.

May I rejoice because of your deliverance!

13:6 I will sing praises to the Lord

when he vindicates me.

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Derek Webb, Edgy and a Voice in the Wilderness