PSALM 13 Reading Guide March 31- April 6
PSALM 13 2 PSALM 13 1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; alight up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, 4 lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. 5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me. DAY 1 Read through Psalm 13 once writing down what you find interesting, what you find helpful, and what you don t fully understand. Read through the notes on Psalm 13 in the ESV Study Bible*. Write at least one paragraph highlighting what you learned from the study notes. Reread Psalm 13, personalizing the Psalm as your own prayer. Write out that prayer. According to the notes in the ESV Study Bible this is an individual lament for circumstances where the worshiper is on the verge of despair, his powers of endurance spent. Remember that as you read this. It is not a theological treatise. If it were, it would affirm that God will not forget his people (cf. Ps. 9:12) and that the abandonment here is only apparent. But a song, whose goal is to describe feelings, does not need the same level of precision and detachment as a treatise. 1 1 ESV Study Bible, notes on Psalm 13. (Emphasis mine.)
PSALM 13 3 DAY 2 Read Psalm 13 again. Write down some of the phrases David uses in verses 1-4 to describe how he feels. Now, using your own words, write down five or more words that describe what David is feeling. The prayer in Psalm 13 moves from despair (verses 1-2) to a call for help (verses 3-4) to confidence in God s promised love (verses 5-6). In the midst of his seemingly never-ending despair he asks God how long? four times in the first two verses David cries out to God for help. Though he is despairing and God seems absent, David trusts God enough to call out to him for help. He gives the reason he calls out like this: But I have trusted in your steadfast love (Ps. 13:5). When David speaks of God s steadfast love, he does so using a word that brings to mind God s loyal commitment to his people. It is a reminder of God s commitment to his people: I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God (Ex. 6:7). One author described God s steadfast love like this: No matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love. 2 This is the love that David trusted in, even when it felt like God had left him. We know of that love in an even greater way that David did. As Paul explains in Romans 5:6-8, God s steadfast love found its highest and fullest expression in Jesus death for us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This trust in God s love, even when God seems distant or absent and his blessings far from us, is expressed well in Sandra McCracken s hymn, In Feast or Fallow. When the fields are dry, and the winter is long Blessed are the meek, the hungry, the poor When my soul is downcast, and my voice has no song For mercy, for comfort, I wait on the Lord In the harvest feast or the fallow ground, My certain hope is in Jesus found My lot, my cup, my portion sure Whatever comes, we shall endure. Whatever comes, we shall endure 2 Lloyd- Jones, Sally. The Jesus Storybook Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007. p. 36.
PSALM 13 4 On a cross of wood, His blood was outpoured He rose from the ground, like a bird to the sky Bringing peace to our violence, and crushing deathʼs door Our Maker incarnate, our God who provides. Come, oh come, Emmanuel Come, oh come, Emmanuel When the earth beneath me crumbles and quakes Not a sparrow falls, nor a hair from my head Without His hand to guide me, my shield and my strength In joy or in sorrow, in life or in death Write out a prayer of thanksgiving: to God, your Heavenly Father, who loved you with a steadfast love; to Jesus, his son, who gave expression to that love when he died on the cross for your sins; to the Holy Spirit who allowed you to understand and trust in that love and continues to help you believe God loves you in the way that he does. DAY 3 Read Psalm 12 again. We can learn a lot from David about prayer in this Psalm. His language isn t theologically precise. Again, he isn t writing a theological treatise. Instead, he is honestly crying out to God and honestly telling God how he is feeling. David asks God, How long? four times in the first two verses. The first line is How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? Though David knows that God hasn t forgotten him, he honestly tells God how he feels. We often struggle speak to one another with that kind of honesty about what we are feeling. We don t often think about them with God. Through his example, David shows us that conversation with God (prayer) is a safe place to honestly process those feelings. Read verses 1-4 again. Read your description of David s situation from yesterday s study. If you think of other words, add them to your description. Now think of a time in your life when you felt like David felt. (If you are currently feeling that way, think about how you are feeling now.) As you think about that time, write down how you feel (or felt). Be sure to include a description of how you viewed your relationship with God during that time. Would you feel comfortable telling those things to God? Write down the reasons you would or wouldn t feel comfortable telling God those things.
PSALM 13 5 Often, in the midst of despair, we struggle like David to wonder if God will even hear us. Or, we wonder if praying will do any good. Anglican Minister John Newton, wrote the following regarding prayer in the midst of despair (emphasis mine). Look upon him as a physician who has graciously undertaken to heal your soul of the worst disease, sin. Yield to his prescriptions, and fight against every thought that would represent it as desirable to be permitted to choose for yourself. When you cannot see your way, be satisfied that he is your leader. When your spirit is overwhelmed within you, he knows your path: He will not leave you to sink. He has appointed seasons of refreshment, and you shall find that he does not forget you. If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near him, we may be sure we shall get none by keeping away from him. In verses 5-6 David looks to God and his steadfast love. As Commentator Derek Kidner writes, David entrusts himself to this pledged love, and turns his attention not to the quality of his faith but to its object and its outcome, which he has every intention of enjoying. 3 Read verses 5-6 again. Write down the things David remembers and hopes in, even when God seems distant. Write down the reasons you can hope in those things as well. The writer of Hebrews, writing to a group that had need of endurance, encouraged them to look to Jesus to help them endure: Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted (Heb. 12:3). If you are, like David was, on the verge of despair and find your powers of endurance spent, write out a prayer honestly expressing your feelings to God. If helpful, use phrases from Psalm 13. Ask him to help you. Read over what you ve written about Jesus over the last couple of days. End your prayer like David does, expressing faith in God and his promises. If you aren t, right now, feeling like David did when he wrote Psalm 13, write out a prayer to God asking him help you believe, right now, that he can be trusted at all times, even when it seems like he isn t trustworthy. End your prayer like David does, expressing faith in God and his promises. DAY 4 Read Psalm 13 again. Though this is an individual lament, as we read it, we find we are encouraged to both pray as David prayed and trust as David trusted. His honesty encourages our own honesty. His faith encourages our own faith. 3 Kidner, Derek. Psalms 1-72. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity-Press, 1973. p. 78.
PSALM 13 6 The Prophet Isaiah encouraged a similar endurance among God s people. He described their glorious future, when heaven and earth are made one at Jesus final return. In light of that promised return a final salvation (Ps. 13:5) when all God s enemies are destroyed (Ps. 13:3-4), and God s people will sing about God s bountiful dealings with them (Ps. 13:6) Isaiah encourages God s people to do the following in Isaiah 35:3-4: Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, Be strong; fear not! Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Think of someone who is in a similar situation to David in Psalm 13. Write down some specific encouragement you can give them in that will help strengthen them in the midst of their despair. (Remember, you are trying to encourage, not fix, them with your words.) Pray, asking God to help you love that person well. Then, write out a prayer to God, asking him to help them in their specific situation. If appropriate, send them both the specific encouragement and the text of your prayer for them. Let them know it is based on Psalm 13. DAY 5 Read through Psalm 13 twice. Write out at least two paragraphs reflecting on what you ve learned about God, yourself, and others from Psalm 13. Write out at least one thing you hope to apply to your life from Psalm 13. Spend at least 15 minutes sharing what you wrote with a trusted friend or family member. If they read Psalm 13 this week, ask them to do the same. End your time in prayer, thanking God for what he taught you this week. * Purchasing an ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2008.) will aid you in your understanding of the Psalms. The first day s reading each week assumes you will have access to the notes in the ESV Study Bible. The ESV Study Bible is the most comprehensive study Bible ever published. It will help you understand not just the Psalms, but also the rest of the Bible in a deeper way. You can either buy the Bible (amazon.com, search: ESV Study Bible) or purchase online access to the notes at www.esvbible.org. Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 2013 Elliot Grudem.