Psalm 13: Bountifully

There are few questions that are more rooted in pain or disappointment than “How long?”. The question is often a cry for help, an effort to find the courage or strength to endure, sometimes it’s a preparation for an even greater grief. “How long will this last?” “How long do we have?” “How long can I wait?” The question can definitely be asked for information, but most often it’s a question that comes from the depths of our heart, “How long . . .?”

Psalm 13 is a lament, it’s a cry for help from David’s heart to God’s. It begins with David asking four different times, “How long . . .?” In the questions we find the basic ideas or emotions of a lament, “I am hurting. You have forgotten. My enemies are winning.” David knows God is listening, that’s why he continues to pray, sing, even lament. He knows God is present, that’s the purpose of the song, to remind himself by emptying himself to God. He even knows God is working. If God had truly forgotten then David wouldn’t have bothered, what David is doing in his questions is offering his honesty, he’s exposing how he feels so that he can combat his feelings with what he knows. Sometimes what we feel is counter to what we know. Sometimes we know God is near, but we feel alone. Sometimes we know God is good, but we feel overwhelmed with trouble. Sometimes we know God’s love will not ever fail us and yet we feel as if we’ve been forgotten. These are the times for lament. A lament doesn’t accuse, it announces, it doesn’t call God out, it lets God in, it’s not shaking our fist at God, it’s opening our hearts to Him. Lament exposes the darkness of our feelings so that truth can relight our path.

David asks some questions here that make us uncomfortable, questions that we know are incorrect. In reading his lament we must be careful not to turn into Job’s friends and forget that there is a difference between being incorrect and being wrong. David asks, “Will you forget me forever?” We know God had not forgotten David and we know that God has not forgotten us, but don’t we feel that way sometimes? I’m not advocating for allowing our feelings to control us, rather, I’m saying that often our feelings hold us until we expose them. David’s question was incorrect, but it was not wrong. What sound like accusations from the outside is a dialogue of intimacy, it’s the sometimes-messy truth of devotion and relationship. David didn’t need to be corrected, he needed to be heard and then he needed to be reminded. We are a forgetful people. We forget what we should remember, and we often remember what we should forget. Lament is often an expression of our forgetfulness and an opportunity to remember, to be reminded of what we know is true.

My favorite example of this is found in Matthew 11. John the Baptist was in prison, not knowing what his future would be, but I’m assuming becoming more and more aware that he may be executed. He sent his disciples to find Jesus and to ask him a simple question, “Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?” This question is very similar to David’s “How long . . .?” John the Baptist was the one who announced that Jesus was the Messiah. He had been waiting for Him, saw the Spirit of God rest upon Him, shouted for all to hear, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” John, of all people, knew that Jesus was the Messiah. But in his lonely place he questioned, he wondered, he forgot what he knew because he was fighting with how he felt. The beauty of this passage is John’s lack of fear. He was not afraid of asking the wrong question. He was not afraid of looking forgetful, weak or foolish. He knew the heart and character of Jesus enough to be sure that even if his question was incorrect in its nature, it was not wrong in the realm of their relationship. Jesus offered John no correction, no rebuke, no belittling frustration, He simply told John’s friends, “Tell John what you hear and what you see . . .” In other words, “Remind John of what he knows, he hasn’t been wrong, his struggle tried to make him forget.”

David ends Psalm 13 by remembering. His questions don’t get answered, his situation didn’t get changed, his heart didn’t suddenly stop hurting, peace didn’t wash over him and leave him unmoved by his pain, but the truth he knew suddenly became larger than the hurt he felt. He closed with one of the most beautiful statements that could ever be heard in a sad song, “I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” Many translations simply say, “He has been good to me”. That sounds nice, but looking at the language, understanding the situation, listening to David’s song of grief, the word “good” is just not enough. The Hebrew word used here more fully means “to deal with fully; to be weaned; to ripen, bear fruit”. David didn’t simply remember that God was good, he remembered that God left nothing out, that God overlooked no part of his heart or his life, that God was working for him and in every part of him. I believe this was David coming to the realization that Paul would later write in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good . . .”. David still didn’t know how long he’d have to wait, but at the end of his song he remembered God would leave nothing undone, untouched or unloved. The part that moves me the most is that I’m not sure David would have remembered God’s bountiful love if he had not asked his painful questions. Lament leads to remembrance, don’t be afraid to pour out your heart to God, it could be that once you’ve given voice to your pain, He will remind you of the truth of His love. I don’t know how long we will have to wait, but I am sure of this one thing, He will deal bountifully with us.