On Sunday I had the privilege of preaching in a friends church while he was on vacation. As I prepared for it, I tossed aside the idea of reworking a sermon I had already preached at our cathedral and instead took on an emotionally challenging Psalm. I felt led to speak very vulnerably in it. As I studied the passage and read a helpful commentary on it, I was amazed to see how it unfolds.
In Psalm 13, David cries out in the first two verses. Four times he asks “how long?” He expresses a sense of being forgotten by God and forsaken by God, then confesses to wrestling with thoughts that were shadowed by sorrow, and senses that his enemy is triumphing over him. He then cries out in prayer asking God to look on him, answer him, and give light to his eyes. Asking God to look on him relates to his sense of being forgotten. Asking God to answer him relates to his sense that God had forsaken him. Asking God to give light to his eyes relates to his experience of living in darkness (wrestling with thoughts as his heart was filled with sorrow) and fearing his enemy triumphing over him. His prayer leads to enough clarity (answered in part no doubt) to proclaim his trust in God’s unfailing love, to rejoice in his salvation, and to anticipate the day when he would freely sing God’s praises again, looking back on this experience and how the Lord will have delivered him. It’s an amazing Psalm (as they all are really).
The sermon is available to listen to at the top.
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