"To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me."
Psalm 13
The anguish and agony in the Psalmist's heart are still very evident in the prayer in 3, 4, but there is a significant emphasis which makes it evident that faith is laying hold. His prayer is to the 'Lord my God'. One needs a personal faith in a trouble like this – second-hand religion will not see us through. Often, people do not have this, and in trouble they learn with dismay that they have nothing to hang on to. And sometimes, thankfully, in their extremity, they come to a personal faith. And this may be the point of the exercise, so far as the Lord is concerned: He sometimes has to teach us the hard way to put our trust in Him. It is important for us to see the assertion of faith in 3, 4, as against the complaint in 1, 2; for complaint to the Lord is not quite the same as prayer to Him. Are we able to distinguish between the two?
Thanksgiving is the outcome of true faith, as we see in 5, 6. But this is a battle that has to be won in the darkness, before deliverance comes. The Bible calls it 'the peace of faith'. Indeed, there is no evidence that the Psalmist's situation has changed - that has yet to come - but he has changed, and it is because God has, in effect, said to him, 'Be still and know that I am God'. Often, the answer of God is not given to the mind's questioning, but to the heart's need. God did not answer any of Job's questionings; rather, He answered him - and that is an infinitely greater thing.