Sometimes We Wait

Psalm 13

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

In the past few days I have seen deaths of two people.  One from our former congregation and another from the denomination.  I have seen the pain and suffering of people in hospital and those grieving losses.  We all continue to see the struggles of family and friends dealing with many different illnesses and pains of life.  We walk with people who live in poverty and some even living “on the streets”.  Life is hard.  And for some it can seem unbearable.

Many of the Psalms speak of pain.  Today I looked at Psalm 13.  For my own time yesterday I dwelt on Psalm 77.  The constant struggle of seeing pain, yet seeing God in life.  Wondering how we still struggle, but we see God with us in all things.  My problems are not all answered, at least as I hope for them to be, but God is still faithful.

Most times I want to bring this to the conclusions of seeing the praises.  And we will be there.  But sometimes we also sit with these moments a bit longer.  We live in the pain and struggle.  We trust that things will be well again.  We know that God is faithful.  And we live with the difficult times of life for a bit longer.  We wait.  But we wait in hope and confidence that our God is with us, no matter the depth of our hurts.  We trust in God’s unfailing love.

Prayer

Lord, we lay our broken hearts and lives at your feet.  We know that you bring comfort, hope and healing.  We ask for your miraculous grace in our lives and the lives of those around us.  We rest in your hands, knowing that there is no better place to be.  Trusting that we will be carried through into your good future for us all.  Amen.

Song – Psalm 34