A Study in Psalms Psalm 13

1 ¶ <<To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.>> How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

• In times of trouble, it can seem like God if far from us and like he doesn't hear or answer our prayers

• When we are going through difficulties, we often spend all our time thinking about our problems and fail to become quiet before the Lord. God speaks in a “still, small voice” in our hearts. (1Ki 19:12) When we are troubled and anxious, we tend to miss hearing him.

2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?

• When we face great difficulties, we tend to try to figure everything out on our own. We forget that God is taking us through whatever we're going through and we just want him to take it away.

• We tend to be impatient. When God doesn't seem to be doing anything, we want to fix it ourselves and we weary ourselves trying to make things work out. We forget that God is always with us:

  “ Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Heb 13:5 – 6

3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;

4 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.

• In our anxiety we try to push God. We may tell him what to do and warn him of the consequences of

  inaction, as we see it.

• We should desire for God to triumph and reveal himself to a fallen world, that he is God

• It is the righteous prayer of God's children, not so much to pray for physical protection (although we may pray and trust God to take care of our physical needs as he sees best), but to pray for God to demonstrate his sovereignty in keeping his children from spiritual harm and by making those who would say there is no God to be liars.

5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

6 I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.

• When we finally become quiet before God, we again realize the joy of salvation and recognize how good God is to us and how good he has always been.

• Becoming quiet before God, where we can actually hear his quiet voice in our hearts calming and strengthening us, will cause us to praise him. Note that God DOES allow us to become worried and anxious, and lets us struggle with these things for a time. If we never struggled in any way, such is our nature that we would not appreciate how great and good God is, and we would never grow. But even though we are disquieted and unable to calm down and become quiet before God, he will, as he did with Elijah, eventually bring us to the quietness where we can hear him.