Psalm 13
How long, O Lord?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
Psalm 13 doesn’t begin with praise. It begins with protest. With a voice that dares to say out loud what so many of us keep hidden: How long? Where are you? Why does it feel like you’re silent when I need you most?
These words are not polite. They are not tidy. They don’t fit neatly into a greeting card or a Sunday smile. But they are holy. Because they are honest.
Have you ever felt like the silence of God was louder than any answer? Have you ever whispered in the dark, How long? Have you ever looked around and wondered if your prayers have simply slipped through the cracks?
Sometimes we want faith to be neat and resolved, to wrap every struggle in a bow and call it a blessing. But the Psalms remind us that real faith makes room for honest lament.
- What grief or ache are you carrying today that doesn’t have an easy fix?
- Where in your life do you feel stuck in the question, waiting for a sign that hasn’t come yet?
Even as we struggle with questions like these, the Psalmist reminds us that we don’t need to rush past the pain. There is no false optimism here, no quick solution. There is just a heart, cracked open, daring to speak. And somehow, that honesty is the prayer. It is sacred.
Often we think we need to find the right words to make God listen, but maybe it’s our rawest most honest words that God loves most. Maybe lament is an act of trust in itself, “I trust you enough to bring you my mess.”
Yet this Psalm doesn’t stay only in the shadows. At the end there is a turn that is small, but brave: “But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice… I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
The questions are not answered. The sorrow is not gone. But faith remains, not instead of lament, but alongside a lament unresolved.
- What would it look like to hold both sorrow and trust in the same hand?
- What small, quiet hope do you dare to speak, even while the questions remain?
Psalm 13 invites us to pray honestly, to sing even when we don’t feel like singing, to remember that our “How long?” is a sacred song too.
As you reflect on how lament plays into your conversations with God, take these questions with you into the week.
- Where in your life are you waiting for God to show up?
- What truth might you speak aloud this week, even if it’s messy?
- How could you choose trust, not because you have an answer, but because you know you are heard?
Lets pray:
Holy Listener, You hear what we dare not say. You hold our anger, our questions, our tears. You do not turn away from our lament. You sit with us in the unresolved places. Teach us to trust that we are seen, even in silence. Give us courage to speak our “How long?” And help us find a song to sing, even while we wait. AMEN
