I have a really good memory, it comes in handy. I’m not the best with names an birthdays but I can easily memorize long paragraphs of information like passages of scripture or even what we talked about in a meeting. I learned I had this gift when I was joining the Masonic lodge and it came in handy for my process through the degrees. Came in handy again in my process to become a Kappa. My memory had some drawbacks though, the first drawback is that I would remember things that people forgot, we could be in a meeting and I recall something that someone else said they were going to do and because they did not remember it, I must of made it up. Second drawback to my good memory is because I have this reputation to some of having a memory like an elephant, when I am unable to recall something immediately, people think that I don’t care about it. People will believe that whatever it was I forgot was not important to me, and that can be devaluing to a person to feel like someone does not care about you, to feel “less than” that can hurt. David the attributed author of this passage was feeling that way about God.
Psalm 13 is expressing that kind of grief. The author (identified in the superscription as David) experiencing a sense of spiritual abandonment. David is pleading for a restoration of the relationship with the divine that the psalmist had once enjoyed. David is giving us a short but sweet model prayer.
I. DAVID'S PERPLEXITY (13:1-2):
Four times David asks the Lord, "How long?”
A. "How long will you forget me?" (13:1)
B. "How long will you look the other way?" (13:1)
C. "How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul?" (13:2)
D. "How long will my enemy have the upper hand?" (13:2)
The psalmist’s question asking how long Yahweh will forget the psalmist is a frequent complaint in the Psalter (e.g., Psalms 42:9; 44:24; 74:19; 77:9). The verb shachach, “forget,” cannot be taken in the sense that the word is commonly understood by English speakers today as a mental lapse. Rather, the sense is of being ignored (as an English speaker might say to someone irritated by something, “Forget about it”). That is the first and most grievous complaint of the psalmist: that Yahweh seems to be ignoring him or her. They feel that God is intentionally ignoring them, that he does not care about what is going on in the Psalmist life.
I feel like God is ignoring me sometimes as well, when I look at some of my own United Methodist Clergy still trying to act like racism doesn’t exist. When I see a public health issue politicized, why are will still calling this virus a democratic hoax? Have enough people not died yet? Have enough people not gotten sick yet? I don’t know a single person personally that got over COVID and said, aw man this wasn’t anything. Everyone I know that has gotten it has either died, or said this was the worst feeling they have ever gotten in their lives. They’ve had the flu, this was not like it. I can feel like God has turned his face away when I see more people in my area worried about statues than racism and police brutality. People worried more about money than mama, and saying that they would riot harder for the country or state shutting down a second time than people did for George Floyd. All I keep thinking of is
2 Chronicles 7:14 King James Version (KJV)
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
We need to exercise our patience in these times, the word for counsel in the NKJV is also used for pain, and thoughts in Hebrew. We should be able to learn in our down situations that when things go back up they are that much better. Martin Luther called a situation like Psalm 13 "being in the state which hope despairs, and yet despair hopes at the same time." Caught in the place where it is not great, but not horrible either because everything is about to turn around.
II. DAVID'S PETITION (13:3-4):
David makes two requests of the Lord:
A. Restore me (13:3).
B. Do not let my enemies gloat over me (13:4).
David wants to return to a place of goodness David want the relationship he felt he had with God restored. Not only that, he wants those who are gloating because they have the upper hand. Something to know atout the
III. DAVID'S PRAISE (13:5-6):
A proper response in these situation is still praise. God loves you, God is with you even when you are at your worse. You may not be able to feel or see God like you used to but God is still there. David trusts in the Lord's unfailing love and rejoices because he is good to him.There are some things that God does not and cannot forget. And you are one of them. We think that God has abandoned us, but our heart does not quite believe it.
Some would call this the trial or testing of our faith? It is the refiner’s fire; it is how the “testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:3-4). It is that “fiery ordeal” about which the apostle Peter writes (4:12), and about which we should not be surprised.
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