Dealing with Life’s Difficulties | Psalm 13

INTRODUCTION

We know that David was anointed king at a very early age, yet he spend years under threat and uncertainty; 1 Samuel 19-31. He lived as a fugitive, sometimes in the desert of En Gedi, in the midst of the darkness of the cave, falsely accused, alone, hated, and maligned. David had his own share of suffering. Even after being the King of Israel David had his own share of pain and sorrow. We do not know the context, but David wrote this Psalm in one of his painful experiences.

Psalm 13

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

²How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

⁴and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fal

⁵But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

Psalm 13 is a Psalm of David. This is also called a lament Psalm.

We know that David was anointed king at a very early age, yet he spend years under threat and uncertainty; 1 Samuel 19-31. He lived as a fugitive, sometimes in the desert of En Gedi, in the midst of the darkness of the cave, falsely accused, alone, hated, and maligned. David had his own share of suffering. Even after being the King of Israel David had his own share of pain and sorrow. We do not know the context, but David wrote this Psalm in one of his painful experiences.

BIBLICAL REASONS GOD MAY PERMIT SUFFERING

Discipline. Sometimes some people suffer because it is part of God’s discipline. In John 5, Jesus said to the invalid man for 38 years after his healing, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Who the Lord loves he disciplines, like a parent bringing correction. Some suffering can be caused by discipline.

Purity. God sometimes suffering to purity us or lead us to holiness. Like the thorn in Paul’s flesh. It was to humble Paul and strengthen him for ministry around the Roman world. It was a purification process. That is what trials often do.

Witness. Sometimes we go through suffering which gives witness to God. Demonstrates God’s glory. Lazarus who had died and was raised so that people would see that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. John 9, man born blind. John 9:3 ³“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Redemptive suffering. When one absorbs the suffering around you and you take it and destroy it. That is part of Jesus’ suffering which is a substitutive suffering.

Mystery. This is the biggest category. When you read the book of Job and reflect on the book of Job, he never knew why he suffered.

So this prayer, “Open my eyes” is to give reason why am I suffering? Sometimes God does explain why we suffer, but it is easy to misunderstand suffering. Not even the wisest can be 100% sure of suffering. Suffering is a mystery.

HOW CAN WE DEAL WITH OUR LIFE’S DIFFICULTIES?

1. Lament Honestly

David begins this Psalm with the question: “How long?”

Psalm 13:1-2

¹How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

²How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

This is not the question of a child on a train asking, “Dad how long before we get there?” This is a question of great agony out of the suffering that David had been experiencing.

Question: It is appropriate for a follower of Jesus to practice lament?

Perhaps you had thought that a real believer is supposed to be full of faith, trust, patient to count it all joy when you face trials of all kinds as James puts it up. Yes, these are important practices, there is no doubt. But when we consider Psalms and also Jesus, the response of lament is a faithful practice in suffering.

Consider the Psalms:

Where? – Psalm 89:49 Lord, where is your former great love?

Why? – Psalm 42:9 “Why have you forgotten me?

How long? Psalm 13:1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

About 60 of the 150 Psalms are classified as Psalms of lament, where they at least contain some portion of these type of questions of lamenting sin and lamenting suffering.

Lament is a prominent theme in the book of Psalms.

Jesus Lamented. When we come to the NT, we see perfectly in the life of Jesus himself. Jesus spoke a Psalm of lament as one of his last 7 words on the cross. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22:1

In fact, the only right way to understand any of the Psalms is to being to realize that they are all completed and fulfilled in Jesus himself who is able to sing the Psalm perfectly, the true Israel, the true Son of David. So we look at the Psalms, we look at Jesus himself.

God Laments. Then we consider God’s own nature, we see God lamenting. Scriptures use human language to show God’s real grief.

God cries over the nations – Isaiah 15:5 (over Moab), Jeremiah 48:31 (over Moab).

Isaiah 22:4, God bitterly weeps over the destruction of his people.

Isaiah 22:4

Therefore I said, “Turn away from me;

let me weep bitterly.

Do not try to console me

over the destruction of my people.”

These are not literal tears, but what humans experience in literal tears, the eternal and unchangeable God experiences in his inexhaustible perfection. Human suffering and lament is different to the divine weeping and lament. So our lament follows in the likeness of God who responds to suffering with his divine lament.

So scripture affirms the importance of lament. We see it in the Psalms. You see it in Jesus himself; and we see it within God’s own nature.

Scripture while it affirms lament, it also rejects certain responses to suffering.

UNBIBLICAL RESPONSES TO SUFFERING

a. Deny suffering

One response to suffering that scripture rejects is the tendency to deny suffering. We can misuse the scripture to deny suffering. That is what the prosperity gospel proclaims. The prosperity gospel says, “Come to Jesus, he will solve all your problems.”

Lament is a reminder that the Christian life is not all blessing, it is not all reaping rewards. The gospel at the very centre is about the cross and the cross is about the suffering of the God-man Jesus Christ. Suffering is woven into the very fabric of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to live the Christian life. So there is a tendency among some Christians to deny suffering.

Some world philosophies redefine suffering as illusion or merely a mental construct; scripture treats suffering as real. Christianity affirms that suffering is caused by sin but on the flipside, suffering is caused by love. God is love and God himself suffers out of his love to deal with our sin. So rather than deny suffering we recognize and affirm it.

Lament is one of these practices that helps us realize that suffering is real.

b. Grumble in suffering

The scripture rejects the tendency to grumble during suffering. To grumble or murmur against God as Israel did in its 40 years in the wanderings means to judge God’s decision as wrong. They were asking questions to tell that God was wrong: “Did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us?”

c. Curse God (and others) in suffering

This is another great temptation as we suffer. Job’s wife who with Job lost children and property appears to have taken this path of cursing God.

Rather than denying suffering, or grumbling within it or cursing God within your suffering, the practice of lament is asking honest questions to God out of your faith when you are going through the suffering.

David’s Lament: Lament expressed in 3 questions:

David’s challenges in Psalm 13

Overarching question: How long: Psalm 13:1 ¹How long, Lord?

a. Suffering feels prolonged (“How long?”)

How long? The question of how long gets to the length of time in suffering. Sometimes suffering lingers on and on without any known end.

How long Lord? The only promise that we are given in scripture is, “Just a little while.”

Hebrews 10:37 For, “in just a little while, he who is coming will come, and will not delay.”

Revelation 6:9-11

⁹When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. ¹⁰They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” ¹¹Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.

In light of eternity our lifespan is very short. From eternity’s perspective it is like a tape measure. Yes, suffering is real. Suffering hurts but it is just a little while when compared to eternity.

“How long” is the overarching question of the entire Psalm and then there is followed up by 3 sub questions that the psalmist asks.

Psalm 13:1-2

¹How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

b. He feels forgotten by God (“Will you forget met forever?”)

As suffering lingers we also begin to ask: God have you forgotten me?

If you place your trust in the Lord Jesus, there is only one thing according to the scripture that God will forget.

Isaiah 43:25

“I, even I, am he who blots out

your transgressions, for my own sake,

and remembers your sins no more.

The only thing that God will forget is your sin if you put your faith in Jesus Christ. He will never forget you. His promise is for you.

Isaiah 49:15-16

¹⁵“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!

¹⁶See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me.

Your very name is written on his palms.

c. God’s face seem hidden (“How long will you hid your face from me?”)

Here is the opposite of receiving Aaron’s blessing that ‘the Lord make His face shine upon you.’ This is the experience that God’s earthly and outward blessing has become seemingly absent in David’s life.

d. God seems Silent (“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?”)

Psalm 13:2

²How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

I can identify similar questions that I had in my life and I know many of you do as well.

• You are not experiencing the blessing of a job, you are desperate to get one.
• Or you are in a tough job and you are desperate to get out of it.
• You are working hard but your business is not showing profit.
• Good health has left you.
• Love and acceptance is nowhere to be found. Friends betray you.
• Harmonious relationship with your spouse or son or daughter has gone.
• You don’t know how to pay your next bill.

Rather than blessing everything seems stacked against you. How long will you hide your face? Have you ever experienced the sweet communion, closeness with God but then there can come a time and it comes to almost everyone when God no longer seems to respond. Maybe you read scripture but nothing seems to touch you or encourage you or give you direction. Weeks can turn into months and even months turn into years. In God’s silence it leads you for your own voice to grow loud, full of confusion and contradictory thoughts. You thoughts go within you because you have this anxiety within you that somehow God is gone or His love is no longer on you.

Why, where are you, how long. These are not accusations. These questions of lament are not to be shunned within our Christian. They are really part of a true, authentic, faithful relationship with God. When you trust someone, you always ask them hard and honest questions.

Application: Lament is an appropriate response to suffering.

Even with his troubled mind David had not given up on God.

Psalm 13:3

³Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

There is no change in his trust in spite of his suffering. Look on me Lord, Let your face shine on me. Speak to me Lord. Show me the way. Help me get through this Lord, answer me.

Lament is a way to:

• Channel our grief.
• They help clear the air with God.
• They help us realize that there is nothing we cannot discuss with God.

If you are suffering, do not silence your pain. Bring it to God. If you are walking with someone who suffers, do not rush them past lament, sometimes the best thing is to sit with them and hear them out.

2. Pray Boldly

Notice the change in David now. David moves from questions to requests, even desperate commands. V3-4 – three verbs

Psalm 13:3-4

³Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

⁴and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

Look on me, Lord. Speak to me Lord. Show me the way. Help me get through this.

Answer, me Lord. Look, give an answer.

Give light to my eyes (illuminate my eyes). Prayer of illumination. What is this prayer of illumination to give light to my eyes. It is the same prayer in other Psalm 19:8, Psalm 119:35. In those Psalms, it is a call to the word of God. It is a call to turn to the scriptures and allow the scriptures to give insight to what is going on. So the pray for light to my eyes is to go to scripture and ask the word of God to explain what is happening. Why am I suffering?

David is making a strong prayer to God. We are to pray specifically in our suffering. Church, when we suffer, we often pray in vague, scattered ways. Psalm 13 teaches us to pray with clear, biblical words—short prayers you can repeat when your strength is low.

3. Trust and Praise Deliberately

Now, comes the turning point: v5-6

Psalm 13:5-6

⁵But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

Finally, David is putting his trust in God. He is singing to God despite his pain.

David’s circumstances have not changed in the text, but David’s posture changes. He chooses trust anchored in God’s character—steadfast love. Then he chooses worship:

Trust in God is always consistent with a reason and it always includes small micro steps or baby steps of trust. Faith is taking small steps of relationship with God. He invites you and says, “Trust me, take this one step at a time and see what happens.”

Psalm 13:5-6

⁵But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

What amazes me is this: David’s circumstances have not changed, yet he is coming to the Lord and singing the Lord’s praise.

Then he chooses worship:

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶I will sing the Lord’s praise,

Notice the contrast:

In v4 David fears his enemies will “rejoice” over his fall.

In v5 David says my heart rejoices in God’s salvation.

There is a battle of rejoicing in suffering: either the enemy rejoices over you, or you rejoice in the Lord.

This does not mean forced happiness. It means defiant faith: “Lord, even now, I will not surrender my worship.”

CONCLUSION

Psalm 13 gives a faithful pathway through pain:

Lament honestly

Pray boldly

Trust and praise deliberately

If you are suffering today, begin where David begins: talk to God. Bring Him your “How long?” and laments to him. We can be active in our suffering. When we are active in praise, prayer, thanking God and our whole perspective around the suffering changes.

Two people can go through the same suffering and one can suffer and fall away and another can hold up and ask the question why? It is how you choose to respond.