John M. Fowler is an associate editor of Ministry.

For the seventh time the surgeon's knife probed his vital arteries, leaving him weak, perplexed, and pondering. As a pastor I was invited to pray, to affirm the faith and the hope of a family that had experienced pain for more than 10 long years. The fastings of a mother, the achings of a wife, the questions of two little girls, the prayer of a community, and the faith of the sufferer were partners in a long journey that raised more questions than answers. But one fact stood clear: life is often like that. In its majesty or mystery, in its beauty or hideousness, in its ecstasy or suffering, life is difficult to fathom or understand.

I turned to Psalm 13 for a basis to affirm faith when that seemed almost impossible. In a three-part hymn, the psalmist defines the life of faith in terms of a predicament, a prayer, and praise.

The predicament

The first stanza of the psalm (verses 1, 2) addresses a polarity in human existence: God on the one hand, and evil on the other. The seeming uncertainty of the one and the definite assertiveness of the other press heavily on the human heart, and the psalmist cries out four times: How long?

First, the cry confronts God. "How long, O Lord? Wilt thou forget me for ever?" (verse 1).* The desperate inquiry does not question the existence of God. God's reality, to the psalmist, is a given. Faith must always begin with the axiom that God is. But can faith ever wonder that God forgets His own? Obviously it can and does. Don't we see on the cross a similar cry? But faith rooted in the permanency of God's faithfulness and able to relate to Him and dialogue with Him can overcome the onslaught of occasional doubt. Such a faith reaches out and grasps the timeless promise: '"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?' Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isa. 49:15).

Second, the cry underscores a feeling of an apparent absence of God. The suffering psalmist describes his predicament in terms of a paradox: He knows that God is, and yet his God seems absent at a time when he needs Him the most. So he asks, "How long, wilt thou hide thy face from me?" (Ps. 13:1). The closer a person is to God, the greater seems the hiding of the divine face, particularly when that person is under enemy fire. But the issue is not the hiddenness of God; it is the human inability to comprehend the underlying purposes of history and existence. The ups and downs, the twists and torture of life often demand immediate answers and easy resolutions. When that does not happen, human frailty seeks a cop-out: where is God? But faith affirms even in the midst of failures, "I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me" (verse 6).

Third, the cry recognizes the reality of pain. An anguish of soul and a torment of body seem to have converged upon the psalmist. He could see no immediate relief. The grief is compounded by the apparent silence of God and prolonged by the unknown quantity of time. Life seems a chaotic battlefield between to be and not to be. And when defeat seems possible, the question becomes inevitable: How long?

And fourth, the cry rises to a crescendo when the psalmist sees the apparent victory of the enemy. Whoever that enemy is—physical illness, economic collapse, shattered dreams, pursuing shadows, impending death, disloyal friends—all that the psalmist is conscious of is the polarity: the apparent absence of God and the possible victory of the enemy. "How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?" he asks in despair (verse 2). But despair left to itself leads to death, and the psalmist is a man of faith. Genuine faith does not succumb to despair, but turns to prayer.

The prayer

The second stanza of the psalm (verses 3, 4) petitions God to break the polarity and complete the joy of faith here and now. Faith, facing the pressure of suffering, turns to God in absolute assurance and demands of Him three things. "Consider me . . ." The psalmist's faith in God's personal interest in him may not be logical, but is certainly astounding. God the transcendental one, the altogether holy, the entirely other, the one involved in a cosmic controversy is also the immanent one, the loving one, full of grace and truth, who cares for him as though there is no one else in the entire universe.

Out of that personal faith comes the second demand: "Answer me." The fourfold how long pleads for a divine verdict. Does how long mean forever? Does God ever forget His believing children? Does grief mean an indifferent God? Am I born to suffer? The psalmist, being human that he is, cannot complete the contours of God's answer.

So he makes his third demand: "Lighten my eyes." The psalmist dis covers that the answer to all ills is not in argument, but in simple surrender. Even if God should explain to him the why and the wherefore and the how long of human predicament, it may not be what he needs. Better turn to faith's ultimate plea: Give me vision, give me under standing. While vision takes one beyond the immediate, understanding helps to cope with the now and the here. There fore the enemy shall not prevail or rejoice forever. And it's time for praise!

The praise

The final stanza of the psalm (verses 5,6) bursts forth in confidence and praise. Trust in the Lord is never in vain. Come wind, come storm, come death, come life, God's love stands steadfast. "My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me."

My present may be shaky. A surgeon's knife or a friend's betrayal or a castle's collapse may provoke the question How long? But faith finds its answer in that quiet confidence that God who began a good work in me will bring it to completion (see Phil. 1:6).


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John M. Fowler is an associate editor of Ministry.

June 1993

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