For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Psalm 13 – Forgotten

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

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

A. Find Out:    

1. What does David feel? v.1
2. What is happening to him? v.2
3. What does he ask for? v.3
4. What does he feel will happen otherwise? v.4
5. Yet what does he declare? v.5
6. So what will he do? v.6

B. Think:

1. What is causing David to pray?
2. What is the heart of his cry?
3. How is faith seen again here?

C. Comment:

     David still has trouble with his enemies, and he has concern over them. The enemy might be a physical person, or it could even be just the sorrow he has over a particular issue. Enemies can be people or even overwhelming feelings that threaten to pull us down. David’s fear is that he will be overcome and pulled down by “my enemy”.

     But beyond all this there is an even greater concern to David, and that is that the Lord seems far away and doesn’t seem to be responding when he prays. It is almost as if the Lord has forgotten him or has even hidden Himself from David. That is how it does seem sometimes, as if God has moved away and we are left alone and without help. In the light of this, David cries out to the Lord to answer and come and bring a ray of light into his gloomy perspective. Lord, if you don’t bring light into this situation, I shall just go down under the darkness of it, is what he seems to say.

     But then comes the statement of faith from this man of God. Even in the midst of this he declares that he DOES trust in the Lord, he DOES rejoice in his salvation, he WILL sing to the Lord because of His goodness. THIS is faith in action, the ability to praise the Lord IN THE MIDST of the trial!

D. Application?

1. When a trial comes, God often seems distant. This is part of the trial.
2. Will we trust in the Lord IN the trial?