How Long O LORD?

 How long? A question we have found ourselves asking a lot of late isn't it? How much longer will I have to homeschool for? How much longer before I can get back to work? How much longer will this lockdown last? How much longer will I have to wait until I can get the vaccine? How long until everything is back to normal? 

Maybe you have been asking some spiritual questions of a similar nature? How long before we are back together as a church? How much longer before we can sing together? Its been a year of deep frustration for many of us and a year I dont think many of us could have imagined living through and at the heart of it has been this frustration with that question of how long?

The Psalmist has a fairly similar experience in Psalm 13 in fact he asks exactly the same question how long O LORD? How long will you forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? It is easy in the situation we are in at the moment to feel that way isn't it? To feel like the LORD has forgotten us, to feel helpless and hopeless.

We get a sense of the Psalmists problem in v.2 where he asks the question how long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Yet what solution does the Psalmist offer? Well we see that in v.5 he trusts in the steadfast love of the LORD, the covenant love that the LORD has for his people and because of that his heart can rejoice in the salvation of the LORD, he can sing to the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.

As he looks around the Psalmist sees reasons for despair, he sees foes prospering, he sees his own weakness, he sees the sorrow in his heart, he sees his enemies prevailing over him. As we look around it is easy to see reasons for despair, the mounting deaths associated directly or indirectly with COVID 19, we see the wicked prospering, we can see and sense our own weakness.

The solution to the question of how long isn't to look around but its to look up, to remind ourselves of the covenant love of the LORD which never fails, to see the steadfast love of the LORD displayed on the cross through his son Jesus Christ, truly in the midst of asking how long will it be until we can say I will sing to the LORD because despite what I can see around me at the moment he has dealt bountifully with me.

There is an excellent modern rendition of this Psalm which can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaMPbjkprQ0