Tuesday, December 16: Psalm 13- Ever trusting.

How powerful I found this Psalm to be. With cries of anguish and bewilderment David reaches out to the Lord, “How long… How long… How long… How long will my enemy triumph over me?” (1,2).

David is distressed and he bangs on God’s door with cries for help. The tenor of this Psalm is pleading; he bangs and bangs and continues to bang… how long Lord until You help me?

I have been there, very likely you have been there, crying to God on the brink of despair.

And yet, it was not David’s honesty nor his relentless cries that sparked in my heart flames of faith. No, it was the manner in which he ended his prayer.

Where many others and I may despair because it seems like God has abandoned me, and is no longer listening to me, in David rises this amazing faith!

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the LORD’s praise,

for he has been good to me (5-6).

I need to type David’s words again, a message to my brain and heart. This is where deep and true faith lives even when it seems God is absent.

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

God IS always there. I may not feel it. His deliverance may not be as I hope or when I hope BUT God IS always there. His unfailing (I say that word aloud… ‘unfailing’) love is trustworthy. I can and will speak and sing God’s praise because He has been good to me.

Tempted by circumstance to forget all this, David reminds himself to trust, to praise, to rejoice in the Lord God who has revealed Himself to David.

Through David’s prayer, I am reminded that when I am tempted by circumstances to forget God, that is precisely when I, too, need to trust, praise, remember, and rejoice in God my Savior who has never let me down!

Praise to the Lord the Almighty, the King of Creation. O my soul praises Him for He is my help and salvation!!!

He hears me when I call… He hears me when I call.

Lord God I will praise You; Your love never fails… NEVER!

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I pray. Amen.