How Long, O Lord?

How Long, O Lord?

One of the most profoundly comforting things about Scripture is how it reveals God’s compassion for us impatient waiters. He knows that he can appear slow to us. He knows that at times we are going to feel like he’s forgotten us and is hiding his face from us. He knows that as he patiently works out his purposes, we will experience circumstances so difficult and confusing that we cry out in bewildered pain.

And so he not only gives us stories like Abraham and Sarah’s to help us see that we are not alone; he also gives us songs like Psalm 13 to sing.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me? (Psalm 13:1)

The canonical songbook is full of raw poetry—more raw and blunt than many of us are, even when confiding our pain to a trusted friend. And these were congregational songs! The people of Israel were to sing them together.

And from this, we are to hear from God that he knows our waiting for him can be hard. He knows it can feel to us like he is is taking too long. He gives us permission to ask him, “How long is this going to last?” He reminds us that when we feel like he’s forgotten us, it is an experience common to all his faith-children—common enough to warrant congregational singing about it.

And as we pray or sing such psalms, they remind us that God, in fact, has not forgotten us, that what we feel isn’t always real, and that God’s promises are truer than our perceptions.

Renewed Strength Is Coming

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

God’s chosen pace, as well as his chosen place for us—that bewildering, confusing, painful place where we feel like we’re stuck—is redemptive. More than we know. There is more at stake than we can see and more going on than meets our eyes.

But here are two gracious promises God gives to us when we are waiting long:

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)

Like Abraham and Sarah, God is working for you as you wait for him, and he will bring renewal to your weary heart.

So “be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD” (Psalm 31:24). He is able to do what he has promised.