Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Michael Lund for writing this.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Scripture Reading - Psalm 13 (NRSVUE)
To the leader. 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 bear pain in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I 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.
Devotional Thought:
This very short prayer is one I find myself often drawn to. David’s psalm goes from honest complaint, to accusation, to urgent petition, before a declaration of God’s faithfulness. He holds life’s pain together with the knowledge that the Lord loves him, without erasing the heartache and confusion that God’s silence brings. McCann writes, “This kind of prayer challenges us to locate and articulate both our pain and the suffering of others in a way that we often hesitate to do out of fear of offending God, shocking others, or embarrassing ourselves. Psalm 13 gives voice to things we often do not talk about - forsakenness, abandonment, anxiety and inner turmoil, defeat, the fear of death.” (NIB McCann, 728).
How long, O lord? How long will war continue, corruption go unpunished, injustice prevail? How long will we/our friends and family experience chronic health issues, pain, infertility, depression? How long will we/our loved ones experience grief, separation, isolation? How long, O lord?
We know there’s a God who cares for us, who loves his children and his creation. In some ways this makes it all the more exasperating: God has answered prayers in the past, we have experienced his joy and his peace … and yet in times of pain, sorry and fear, we hear no answer. How long, O lord?
As the psalmist continued trusting God, so too the writer of Hebrews reminds us of our Great high priest Jesus, who can empathise with us in our weakness and in times of trial: “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Prayer:
Re-read and pray Psalm 13 above.