How Long, O Lord?

Several years ago, in an effort to show the power of the book of Psalms as a resource for prayer, I wrote out prayers based on the various psalms and shared them on my blog.  I hoped to help people claim the ancient psalms as a still relevant and contemporary “school of prayer.” 

If you have spent much time in the psalms you will note that roughly three-fourths of them are rather melancholy.  As I sought to share deeply the emotional honesty of the psalms through my own prayers, some of my congregation who read my blog-prayers became concerned for me; that perhaps I was going through a crisis of faith.  They could not bear to think that their pastor might honestly identify with a psalm like Psalm 13: 

            How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou forget me for ever?

            How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

            How long must I bear pain in my soul,

                 and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

            How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

Well, maybe these parishioners had never had a moment’s doubt about the omnipresence of God.  Maybe they had never experienced any delay in God’s answering of their prayers.  Maybe they had never been perplexed by the presence of so much evil in God’s good world.  Maybe they had never been disappointed with God.  Or . . . , maybe they simply were living in denial. 

Phillip Yancey, in his book, Disappointment with God, deals with three questions: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?  The conclusions he reaches are not neat and tidy.  We are still left with the question, “Why?”  But what the book of Psalms does is give us permission to ask those questions and let them linger.  The psalms give us license to express our doubt, our disappointment, our anger, even our hatred, and leave all those emotions in the hands of God.  Even when the psalm seems to imply that God is distant and unresponsive, in the very act of praying the psalmist is nevertheless expressing faith in God. 

So much that has been in the news lately – mass killings, ugly politics, devastating weather – may leave us wondering if there’s a God who cares.  Before we Christians rush to the defense of God, perhaps we need to listen to the questions people ask, questions that have been asked in the form of prayer by God’s people long ago, “How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou forget me for ever?”

 

Perhaps there is something to be learned in allowing time for lament and expression of doubt and pain.  Perhaps only after such honesty can we then move to the conclusions of Psalm 13: 

            But I have trusted in thy steadfast love;

                 my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

            I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.