How Long, O Lord?

HOW LONG, O LORD?

An Exposition of Psalm 13

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: January 12, 2025

Series: The Psalms

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

We often use the wrong metrics when we are evaluating our lives. There are the metrics of comfort, the metrics of success, the metrics of performance, the metrics of reputation. If I am comfortable in my life situation, if I have gotten ahead, if I have done all the right things, if others praise me, then that could make me feel very satisfied. Very satisfied, and very little suffering. Is that a good thing? Fully satisfied, and no suffering, will certainly be a good thing in heaven. But very little suffering now at the present time, may not be all that it is cracked up to be. Of course, amount of suffering isn’t the right metric either. Here’s a better metric: engagement with God, seeking after God, knowing God, crying out to God. Are you seeking after the heart of God? Are you laying your heart before Him in prayer? Suffering is a gift that drives us to the Lord. Suffering reminds us that we are finite, weak, and sinful creatures who must depend on the Lord for our next breath, for daily bread, and for victory in the day of battle.

Suffering is an inescapable part of God’s plan for the people that He has redeemed. As it says in Romans 8:16-17,

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:16-17)

God has ordained that suffering is the pathway to glory. We must not be sour faced about it:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

It’s not that we glory in the pain itself, but we have a joyful confidence in the Lord who has promised to accomplish good through the pain. The whole thing seems paradoxical, but it is very freeing and helps us to make sense of the strange world that we live in. Suffering is the pathway to glory. The bitter is the pathway to the sweet. Loss is the pathway to victory. Self-denial is the pathway to fruitfulness. The cross is the pathway to the crown. Let these thoughts be fixed firmly in your heart, and trust God to carry you all the way through. And when you’re in the thick of it, realize that the suffering is designed to draw you near to God.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

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 13:1-6)

THE EXPERIENCE OF SUFFERING

In verses 1-2, we hear David’s experience of suffering. Notice two things about his suffering:

The cause of David’s suffering

First, notice the cause of his suffering: David is under the thumb of an enemy. The enemy, the cruel foe, the wicked aggressor has the upper hand, and David is beaten down, crushed, disoriented. The end of verse 2 says: “How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” In verses 3-4, David asks for deliverance “lest [his] enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest [his] foes rejoice because [he] is shaken.” David’s experience in verses 1-2 is not final and irreversible, but in the moment of suffering David is shaken and it seems like the enemy has prevailed.

A survey of Psalms 3-14 shows that suffering at the hand of wicked enemies was an ordinary part of David’s life.

In Psalm 3, David prays: “O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.”” (Psalm 3:1-2) How often people rise against us, and speak ill of us, and taunt us.

In Psalm 4, David addresses the ungodly people around him: “O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?” (Psalm 4:2) How easily we are distressed and dishonored by liars and slanderers.

Psalm 7 begins with David looking unto the Lord: “O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.” (Psalm 7:1-2) There are times when other people are against you and threaten to ruin you.

In Psalm 10 David reflects on how the wicked prey upon the weak: “In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor” (Psalm 10:2a). “He [the wicked] sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket; he lurks that he may seize the poor; he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might.” (Psalm 10:8-10) The poor, the innocent, the helpless, the fatherless are especially vulnerable to the schemes of wicked men.

In Psalm 11 it is “the wicked” who “bend the bow” and “shoot in the dark at the upright in heart” (Psalm 11:2).

In Psalm 12, “Everyone utters lies to his neighbor” (Psalm 12:2); “the poor are plundered” (Psalm 12:5); “On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man” (Psalm 12:8).

In Psalm 14, “all the evildoers… eat up my people as they eat bread” (Psalm 14:4). Time and again, the wicked consume the righteous.

In this sobering moment at the beginning of Psalm 13, David feels subjugated under the hand of an aggressor, an oppressor, an enemy. The precise circumstances of Psalm 13 are not revealed to us. But we know that David was acquainted with opposition from enemies. In his younger years, David was an enemy of the state: King Saul and his army attempted to hunt David down. David had to endure a long season of suffering, opposition, and danger before he himself became Israel’s king. Years later, David’s son Absalom spearheaded a rebellion against King David, and David had to go on the run.

Our own experiences of opposition may or may not rise to the same level as David’s. But many of us know what it is like to have someone stand against us unjustly: it could be persecution; it could be slander; it could be threats or accusations being made against you; it could be lawsuits filed against you; it could be physical or verbal violence done to you, causing injury to your person, your property, your career, or your reputation; it could be a friend or loved one who has turned against you, betrayed you. When you’re in the moment of verses 1-2 that David was in, it feels like the enemy has you: the enemy is exalted over you, the enemy’s plan seems to be working, the enemy is smiling, and you are down and under, slipping in the darkness.

David’s perception of God in the suffering

Second, still in verses 1-2, notice David’s perception of God in the suffering: God seems distant, far away, unconcerned. “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (v. 1) Suffering, especially the suffering that comes about through the unjust and violent actions of wicked people, forces you to come to terms with God as He has revealed Himself to be. You may be familiar with the following line of thought: If God is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving, then surely He wouldn’t permit gross wickedness to afflict His loved ones. And since gross wickedness does afflict His loved ones, then God must not be all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving. But that line of thought is not a biblical line of thought. That line of thought is the attempt of sinful people to wrap their minds around the infinite and eternal God. The biblical reality is that God is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving, and He permits gross wickedness to afflict His loved ones. God is all-powerful: “The LORD is king forever and ever” (Psalm 10:16); “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). God is all-wise: “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6); “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). God is all-loving: “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house” (Psalm 5:7a); “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8). And this all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving God permits gross wickedness to afflict His loved ones. Just ask Joseph, or Job, or David, or the Son of David.

Knowing this is important, but knowing this doesn’t change the fact that in the face of gross wickedness, you will often wonder where God is in relation to you. Has He forgotten you? Has He hidden His face from you? And for how long?

Let’s attempt to appreciate the internal tension that David and we experience at such times of trouble. On the one hand, the Lord is a shield protecting His people (Psalm 3:3). Strong in the Lord, we will not be afraid of thousands who set themselves against us (Psalm 3:6). God strikes all our enemies on the cheek and breaks the teeth of the wicked (Psalm 3:7). The Lord hears when we call to Him (Psalm 4:3). God is totally opposed to evildoers:

“For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” (Psalm 5:4-6)

If we are on the Lord’s side, then our enemies shall be defeated: “All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.” (Psalm 6:10) “The LORD judges the peoples” (Psalm 7:8a); “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.” (Psalm 7:11) “But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness” (Psalm 9:7-8). “The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.” (Psalm 11:4) The Lord our God is the sovereign King of heaven; He is the righteous Judge; He is the faithful Protector of His people; and He vanquishes His and our enemies. This is good news!

But at times there is internal tension within us, because the Lord doesn’t vanquish His and our enemies immediately. He doesn’t wipe out evildoers at the very first moment that they conceive evil in their hearts. If He wiped out evildoers at the first sign of evil in their hearts, then the epic drama between the righteous and the wicked wouldn’t unfold. Furthermore, if He wiped out evildoers at the first sign of evil, then we’d all be wiped out, right? Even when suffering injustice at the hands of other sinners, it is beneficial for us to remember that we are sinners, too.

So, God lets the drama of evil play out on the state of human history; God permits evildoers time and opportunity to put their schemes into practice; God allows evildoers to do much harm. And think about what this means for us? God puts us into situations where we must cry out to Him for deliverance, for help, for rescue. God puts us into situations where we feel the bitterness of being afflicted and oppressed. God puts us into situations where we are sorely tempted to assume that God has forgotten us. And that very experience tests us: if we feel forgotten by God, will we prove our faith by seeking after Him because we feel desperate for Him, or will we prove our unbelief by throwing in the towel because we feel it’s all pointless?

Let me show you what I mean by God putting us into situations where we must cry out to Him. If David didn’t have many foes rising against him and taunting him, then he would have no need to cry out, “Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God!” (Psalm 3:7) If David hadn’t been in distress, then he would never have been able to say, “You have given me relief when I was in distress.” (Psalm 4:b) If we didn’t go through seasons of being oppressed and troubled, then we wouldn’t be able to declare from the depths of our own experience, “The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.” (Psalm 9:9) The comfort of knowing that the Lord “does not forget the cry of the afflicted” (Psalm 9:12) and that he “[hears] the desire of the afflicted” (Psalm 10:17) requires that I experience the affliction in order to obtain the comfort. We can be such shallow people who just want microwave Christianity – quick and easy, but not deep and strong. Objectively speaking, you are a fragile and finite creature who is totally dependent on the living God. But the nature of sin is to reckon yourself independent of God, and if your sinfulness is joined to outward prosperity, you’ll go on your way singing and dancing all the way to hell. God loves the people that He has redeemed so much, that He sends trials and difficulties in order to make us feel our need of Him, in order to make us wrestle with the things that really matter so that we get hold of solid convictions, so that we know Him, so that our hearts are bound to Him forever. The words of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, may be applied to many situations: “The bitter must come before the sweet, and that also will make the sweet the sweeter.”

God’s timetable holds sway

What all this means, when it comes to the experience of enemies and aggressors, when it comes to the experience of oppression and affliction in this present life, is that God’s timetable holds sway. We can and should have the deep conviction that God strikes all our enemies on the cheek and breaks the teeth of the wicked, but He doesn’t necessarily do it today. “All my enemies shall be ashamed” (Psalm 6:10), but not necessarily today. When David prays, “Make them bear their guilt, O God” (Psalm 5:10) and “let the evil of the wicked come to an end” (Psalm 7:9), he leaves the timing and manner of judgment in God’s hands. Yes, “The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17), but we do not know the day or the hour. “For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever” (Psalm 9:18) – this is true, and yet it clearly communicates that the poor and needy will go through tough times before they are lifted up. But they shall be lifted up in due course:

“O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.” (Psalm 10:17-18)

We look forward to that day when sinful man strikes terror no more, but that day is not yet, and at the beginning of Psalm 13 David feels the terror, the weight, the dismay of his wicked enemy being exalted over him. When you find yourself in a similar situation, let the suffering do its good work by prompting you to pour out your heart, your griefs, and your fears before the Lord. The fourfold repetition of “How long?” testifies to the fact that God permits seasons of prolonged suffering, and the psalm teaches us that during such times, we should wrestle with God. And we should be honest with God. “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1) In Psalm 13:2, David is honest about his own internal angst: he finds that he is taking himself to the therapy sessions of his own counsel constantly, and it’s not very effective, and sorrow fills his heart “all the day” (v. 2). He’s trying to sort it out and think it through, but he’s not getting anywhere. He is lost in the darkness. He is depressed in his spirit. And if that’s where you are, you might as well be honest about it. “How long, O LORD?”

ASKING THE LORD FOR LIGHT

Next, moving to verses 3-4, we hear David’s petition to God in the midst of his suffering:

“Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.” (v. 3-4)

David’s prayer in verses 3-4 tightly corresponds to the initial thoughts that he shared in verses 1-2. The flow of thought in verses 1-2 is: 1) God seems far away; 2) I am depressed; 3) the enemy is exalted over me. The flow of thought in verses 3-4 is: 1) God, show up; 2) so that I’m delivered from my spiritual lethargy; and 3) so that the enemy’s ground of boasting is removed.

While David’s petition carries with it the implication that God will ultimately subdue David’s enemy, nevertheless the focus of David’s request is not the defeat of David’s enemy. In Psalm 13 David doesn’t pray what he prayed in Psalm 11 when he said, “Let him [the LORD] rain coals on the wicked” (Psalm 11:6). In Psalm 13 David doesn’t pray what he prayed in Psalm 10 when he said, “Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer” (Psalm 10:15a). Here in Psalm 13, David’s primary concern is not the fate of his enemy, but the vibrancy of his own relationship with the Lord. His relationship with the Lord is dulled and dimmed in verse 1: David feels forgotten, the Lord’s face seems hidden. In this moment, David has lost his peace and joy in the Lord. He has been shaken, disturbed; He is downcast, dejected. And so, David wants that which is most important to Him: David wants the comfort, joy, and peace of the Lord’s presence and favor. And so, his prayer is that the Lord would see him, hear him, consider him, answer him.

Notice the personal way in which he refers to the Lord in verse 3: “O LORD my God”. When you are attempting to fight the good fight of the faith, when you are attempting to regain your spiritual equilibrium, it is not enough to have a generic concept of some impersonal God far away in the heavens. David isn’t looking for a stroke of luck from the cosmos, or a turn of fortune from chance. David wants his Father in heaven to take action. The personal God of heaven has disclosed His name: LORD, Jehovah, Yahweh, the great I Am, the God who makes covenant with His people, the God who chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who appointed Moses to holy service, the God who led the prophet Samuel to anoint young David as the next king of Israel. This relationship is meant to be personal: “But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill.” (Psalm 3:3-4) “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” (Psalm 4:8) “Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.” (Psalm 5:2) “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1) There is no formula for growing this personal relationship with God. It is the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, making God and His Word real to your heart and life, and drawing you into communion with the Lord.

Then David asks the Lord: “light up my eyes”. It is as if David is languishing in the darkness; David has grown spiritually dull and unresponsive. David knows that he needs to be awakened. He needs light to shine into the room and upon his eyes, in order to wake him up and show him the way. Remember the picture of verses 1-2: the enemy is exalted, David is down and depressed, and God seems far away. David’s world has been reduced down to his own suffering of affliction under the cruel hand of an aggressor. That’s David’s world in verses 1-2, and that is a very depressing world. We can end up in the same place. Big enemy, downcast me, and God seems far away. Big opposition, dejected me, and God in apparent hiding. At such times, you’re sorely tempted to linger there and throw a pity party for yourself. Don’t do that. Don’t settle for that. Learn from David. When your world seems reduced to suffering, you need the High King of heaven to re-enter the four walls of your depressed life. You need God’s light to shine upon your eyes, to reawaken you to spiritual reality, to remind you of His gracious promises, to help you see clearly again. Your life in God is much bigger than you and your enemy, you are your suffering, you and your trial, you and your affliction, but sometimes all we can see is the enemy, the suffering, the trial, the affliction. At such times, we need God to intervene and re-orient us to the bigger picture reality of His grace and truth.

“[Light] up my eyes”. This petition in verse 4 takes us to other places in the psalms. Psalm 6:7 says, “My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.” The eye wasting away in grief needs the light of grace to shine upon it. We need the light of God’s favor, as in the priestly blessing: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) We need the light of God’s Word: “the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:8b). “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

This petition – “light up my eyes” – is a request to regain perspective. My own private counsels cannot push me through to God’s perspective, for I am prone to doubt, distortion, and deception. I need the light of God’s truth to land upon me and clear away the fog and compel me to lift up my eyes to heaven and see things the way they really are. How things really are for the believer, when the believer is standing firm in God’s truth, is articulated by David in Psalm 27:

¹ The LORD is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
    of whom shall I be afraid?

² When evildoers assail me
    to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
    it is they who stumble and fall.

³ Though an army encamp against me,
    my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
    yet I will be confident.

⁴ One thing have I asked of the LORD,
    that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
    all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
    and to inquire in his temple.

⁵ For he will hide me in his shelter
    in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
    he will lift me high upon a rock.

⁶ And now my head shall be lifted up
    above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
    sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD. (Psalm 27:1-6)

What is the difference between Psalm 13:1-2 and Psalm 27:1-6? The difference is largely a matter of perspective. There are times when in the grip of prolonged affliction, we lose our footing. And when we do, thanks be to God, Psalm 13 stands forth as a perfect resource for our recovery. But we don’t need to lose our footing in the first place. God is big, and good. We are secure in Him. And the enemy is going down, in God’s perfect time. The enemy can inflict us with many blows. The enemy can throw us in prison. The enemy can fasten our feet in the stocks. That is exactly what happened to Paul and Silas in Philippi. But they didn’t descend into the depths of Psalm 27:1-2. Instead, they rose to the heights of Psalm 27:6 – “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God”. And why not? They knew that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). They knew that suffering is the King’s highway to glory. They knew that God is still worthy of praise when a blood-bought child of God is in jail. Perhaps they also knew that suffering is a bridge to effective ministry, for the Philippian jailer was about to be converted through their ministry.

DAVID REDISCOVERS HIS STABILITY IN THE LORD

Finally, we hear David’s resolution after the light has gotten through to the eyes of his heart, in verses 5-6. Sometimes it is difficult to know the time sequence that is implied in a psalm like Psalm 13. Psalm 13:1-6 recounts an experience of several days (at a minimum), and perhaps several weeks or months, but the whole experience is compressed into six verses that we can read in less than two minutes.

Perhaps David sat down and wrote this psalm after he had recovered from a season of discouragement. In that case, verses 1-2 would reflect the season of discouragement that he felt for a number of weeks, perhaps. Then verses 3-4 reflect the focus of his prayer as he was attempting to flee the darkness of his discouragement. Finally, verses 5-6 reflect the rediscovery of stability in the Lord that happened when the Lord answered the prayer of verses 3-4, when the Lord brought the light into David’s dark room of suffering.

David trusted in the Lord’s steadfast love long before the season of discouragement in verses 1-2, and long after it, but the experience of verses 1-2 represented a dulling and dimming of that trust. David’s faith was weakened and his outlook was darkened during those days. But as the Lord causes light to shine upon his eyes, David remembered the Lord’s steadfast love, the Lord’s mercy, the Lord’s faithfulness. David’s stopped his sliding, and he was re-established in the preciousness of the Lord’s grace. He found his footing in the Lord again. And thus re-secured in the good news of the Lord’s gracious salvation, he was encouraged and he was able to gaze into the future with confidence. Looking at the road ahead, he was no longer sinking in despair, but he was resolved to continue living as a worshiper of God: “my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” (v. 5b-6)

Notice the wonderful transition from “sorrow in [his] heart” in verse 2 to joy in his heart in verse 5. God’s light of verse 3 turns the sorrowful heart to joy. David knew that the Lord “has dealt bountifully with me”. Here again, the Lord “dealt bountifully with [David]” long before the dark season in verses 1-2, and long after it, but David needed to remember the Lord’s bountiful dealings with him, the Lord’s favor and kindness, the Lord’s forgiveness and guidance, the Lord’s protection and strength.

As verses 5-6 conclude the psalm, we don’t really know whether or not the enemy has been judged yet. The question of the status of David’s enemy at the end of the psalm, and whether or not that enemy has been judged by the time the psalm ends, isn’t really answered. What is going on with the enemy fades into the background, and what comes into the foreground is what is going on with David. And what is going on with David is that his faith has been rekindled, he has been strengthened in his inner man, he has been reminded of the Lord’s kindness to him, and he has fresh courage to face the future. And even if this enemy has been defeated, it is only a matter of time before another enemy appears. But David has rediscovered his heart to sing to the Lord, as he had declared a few psalms earlier:

“Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted. Be gracious to me, O LORD! See my affliction from those who hate me, O you who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation.” (Psalm 9:11-14)

The very fact that so many of the psalms address the theme of affliction, oppression, and suffering, shows us that it is a thematic part of our lives as God’s people. Further, one psalm is inadequate to give us the resources that we need for the journey. We need all the psalms that I have referenced this morning, and indeed all 150 psalms, in order to walk with God on the path of suffering that leads us upward to glory.

JESUS WALKED THIS PATH OF SUFFERING

And this path of suffering, of course, is the path that Jesus walked. We remember that our Lord Jesus entered into the experience of verses 1-2. In the garden of Gethsemane he said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). He was betrayed, arrested, accused, condemned, mocked, struck, and nailed to a cross. It looked like the enemy, including the enemy named death, had the upper hand. On the cross He bore the sins of His people, including the sins of His enemies and oppressors, and He entered into thick darkness, and prayed to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) And yet, Jesus’ faith and faithfulness never failed. He became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross: it was trusting His Father’s good will that led Him to the cross, and before He died He entrusted Himself to the Father, saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46) And then Jesus died. Jesus descended further than David did in Psalm 13: David was concerned “lest he sleep the sleep of death”. Jesus entered fully into death. And death seemed to prevail for three days. But light came on the third day: the Father raised His beloved Son from the dead. Steadfast love and joyous salvation on resurrection morning, the Father dealing bountifully with His Son and with all who take refuge in His Son.

Dear believer, if you ever get to wondering if God has forgotten you or hidden His face from you, remember Jesus. Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us”, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. He draws near to us in our weakness, in our suffering, even in our sinfulness and wretchedness. He comes into this broken world to win us back. Jesus is the Light of the world, shining upon us with the good news of the kingdom of God. Jesus is the very embodiment of grace and truth, and steadfast love and faithfulness, the Savior who deals bountifully with us and puts a song in our heart.