The Ugly Raw Meets Hope and Joy – Ps 13

Celebration Service.  That’s what most worship services are called these days at churches.  Celebrations.  And in a sense they should be.  Jesus gives us much reason to celebrate.  But have you noticed all the songs and most of the music is happy,  upbeat, dance around kind of music?

One of my college classmates was a pastor and things were falling apart.  His church was falling apart.  And finally it shut down.  He was crushed.  And one Sunday he told his wife he couldn’t go to church.  He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.  Why?  Because he knew it would be a “celebration” service only.  And his heart was heavy and needed to lament.

When we read through the Psalms, we read a very real and raw David.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget these are actual songs that they sung.  They covered the entirety of the human experience–from happy to sad, from glad to mad.  But David could do truth, because he had trust.

In this psalm we see David very real and very raw.

“Lord, how long will You forget me?  Forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?  How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day?  How long will my enemy dominate me?” (Ps 13:1-2).

I can imagine some just telling him–David, you just need to have more faith.

David wasn’t afraid of real.  He was suffering and it seemed like God was sitting on his hands, doing nothing.

If the story just stopped there, it would be sad, depressing, and un-redemptive.  But that wasn’t David.  No matter how long it took, David waited on God with hope.  With faith. With joy in the pain.

He ends his groanings of his sufferings with this:

“But I have trust in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance, I will sing to the LORD because He has treated me generously” (Ps 13:5-6).

He trusts.

He rejoices.

He sings.

Because the LORD has treated Him generously even though he

Hasn’t seen it yet.

He is suffering.

His enemies are beating him down maybe even to death.