Where’d the Lion go?
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Earlier this year, I started reading The Chronicles of Narnia with Isabelle.
We started out one night reading the first chapter of The Magician’s Nephew. I finished the chapter as Polly puts on the ring and disappears. Isabelle gasps and says, “Where’d she go?” And I said, we’ll find out tomorrow. She was hooked.
If you know Narnia, then you know Aslan. He’s CS Lewis’s God character, and when he shows up he’s spectacular. Isabelle loved Aslan. When I would come to a page with him we’d both get so excited.
We ate up The Magician’s Nephew, we absolutely loved The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe because Aslan was all over the place. He brings back Christmas, starts spring, and dies to save the treacherous Edmund! And spoiler alert, he comes back to life to beat the Queen once and for all.
But then, you reach The Horse and His Boy.
It’s the 3rd book of the series. And if you’ve read it before you know this…Aslan disappears. He’s not there.
And the book is…slow. The plot is confusing. The characters are okay…the whole story feels stuck. The Horse - Bree and his boy - Shasta - meet a girl named Aravis, he travels through a big city, into the wilderness, they’re chased by lions…and the whole time Isabelle and I are reading it we’re asking, Where’s Aslan? Chapter 1 no Aslan. Maybe he’s in chapter 2…nope, nothing in chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10! Isabelle was ready to throw in the towel and go back to Daniel Tiger.
I think life often feels like that.
Where’s God? He was just here. When he was speaking, life was exciting, I felt alive, my life was a page turner, I saw God moving and working and he was incredible.
And now…I’m ready to throw in the towel.
Last Sunday we read Psalm 12 and we asked, “What do you do when it feels like all the good people have left the building?”
And this Sunday as we study Psalm 13, we are asking, “What do you do when it seems like God himself has left the building?”
What do you say when God isn’t saying anything?
Did I do something wrong? Was this whole faith thing just a lie and I was set up for this?
What do you do when it feels like God is gone?
How do you keep going when it seems way easier to throw in the towel? When you’re this close to the edge?
How do you pray when it feels like these cinder blocks would give you a better conversation?
Are you there today? Have you been there?
Maybe you’ve been praying for chronic pain for years, and you’ve heard nothing, no medicine or surgery has helped.
Maybe you’ve been praying for a career or job that would finally feel like it fits. And job after job just stinks.
Maybe you’ve been praying for your mind to stop feeling like such a warzone. And on and on the anxiety and depression persists.
Maybe it feels like it’s been forever since you opened your Bible and it didn’t feel like a chore. You remember what it was like to hear God’s voice and now it’s a distant memory.
Maybe you’re here this morning because it’s what you know you’re supposed to do, but it hasn’t been joyful or life-giving since COVID.
Maybe there’s something in your life you’ve been begging God for over and over, and it seems like it’s met with indifference.
Where’d the lion go?
Psalm 13 is a prayer for when it seems like God isn’t saying anything.
We’ll see in verses 1-2 an honest question, verses 3-4 a desperate request, and verses 5-6 a tearful resolution.
An honest question
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?
David asks an honest question, “God, where are you?”
Sometimes we think we’re not allowed to say things like that to God because well, technically, it’s wrong. But, it sure doesn’t feel like it.
As Tab read, this is a Psalm of David and we don’t know the exact occasion of this Psalm.
Some say it’s when David was very ill and near death.
That could be true, but it could be applied to a host of situations when David was in a desperate situation, begging God to say SOMETHING.
Isn’t it interesting that in Psalm 12, God speaks.
He responds. He says, “I’ve heard your groans! I will arise!”
And then in Psalm 13, David says, “Okay…but when?”
I know you gave me your word…but how long until you do anything??
It seems like you don’t even remember me!
He says it seems like you’re hiding your face from me - in the Bible God’s face is like an embodiment of his goodness, favor, and blessing. And the Psalmist says, I don’t see any of it.
And this is causing David serious emotional distress.
He’s ruminating in his thoughts endlessly.
If his doctor asked, “How often are you experiencing sadness and feeling depressed?” He’d say, Every day!
David also has an enemy - he had many in his life - who seems to have the upper hand because God hasn’t answered.
How long? What’s taking so long? It’s an honest question.
It’s also a normal question.
According to the Bible, to question God’s timing is one of the most normal human experiences.
To pray over and over and hear nothing, it happens to us all.
To be this close to the edge and asking God, ‘What’s going on?’ Is like death and taxes, it’s unavoidable.
We could spend all day talking about examples from Abram and Sarai waiting decades for a promised son, to Joseph waiting in Egypt, Israel in slavery for 400 years, Job crying out to God in his suffering…
And then there’s Hannah.
Hannah begs God for a baby. Hears nothing. Her husband has another wife which is always a bad idea, and this women has kids and is gloating over Hannah.
Hannah is so distressed she goes to the temple and prays in such pain that the priest thinks she’s drunk.
14 And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.” 15 But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. 16 Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”
Psalm 13 is a Hannah prayer.
Psalm 13 is a Jesus prayer. He prayed 3 times in the Garden of Gethsemane, “God if there’s any other way, please do something!”
Psalm 13 is a human prayer.
When we pray and it seems like God is gone, you are not alone.
Don’t give up faith.
God’s silence does not mean he’s absent.
God’s answer often takes a lot of time.
And when we ask, “How long?” if we got an honest answer he might say, “A lot longer.” He might say, “Not until after death.”
The Bible normalizes despair. It gives us language for doubt. Not unbelief, we’ll see in the next Psalm that the fool says “There is no God.” But it helps us speak when it seems like God isn’t.
So this morning if you’re in chapter 1-10 of your story and it seems like the Lion is gone, you’re not alone. This is a human prayer.
David asks an honest question - how long, O Lord? Then he makes a desperate request.
A desparate request
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light 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.
David is close to throwing in the towel.
His request is desperate because as he says - he’s close to sleeping, not in a cat nap sense, but in the sense that he’s about to die.
Think about me, God!
Say something!
Or else, I’ll die!
Or else, my enemy will say, “See, he’s nothing! See, she’s garbage. See, I’ve won!”
Or else all my enemies will slap high fives as I suffer panic attacks.
This is the prayer of so many in Scripture.
Abraham - God, give us a child!
Israel - God, save us from slavery!
Jonah - God, save me from this pit!
The disciples - Jesus, can’t you see we’re drowning?
You can hear Hannah’s prayer here - God please give me a child or else this other woman is going to make my life a living hell!
Psalm 13 teaches us that to be great in God’s family is to often be at places where you are unbelievably weak.
Where you are alive, but barely.
Where you have faith, but only kind of.
Where you’re praying, but with anger, fear, and desperation.
That if God seems distant, you may not have done anything wrong.
That if you’ve been praying for something for years and not heard anything, your prayers aren’t bad!
By the way - notice, God doesn’t interrupt David.
He remains silent.
And while that distresses David to the core, we actually learn something about God and that teaches us that on Sunday mornings when someone is pouring out their hearts to us, sometimes the best thing is to just listen.
Psalm 13 teaches us that when we’re asking, “Where did the lion go?” When we’re close to hanging in the towel, when we’re on the verge of giving up on God, We are to keep the conversation going.
Give God your honest questions.
Make your desperate requests.
Jesus taught us that the most basic part of prayer is asking!
If you could walk through the kids room door and have a private personal audience with God for five minutes and you could say whatever you wanted, what would you tell him?
David doesn’t hold back and gives God an honest question, “How long?” He makes a desperate request in verses 3 and 4, and we’d think that this thing may be headed for disaster, for full deconstruction, but what happens?
A tearful resolution
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.
Shockingly, David makes a tearful resolution.
I say tearful because I think it’s inaccurate to think that between verses 4-5 David is now okay.
That his anxiety is gone.
That his heart rate has come back to normal and his appetite has returned.
He’s probably still crying.
And that trust is in the midst of his suffering.
Even as I weep, I will sing songs to God because I may be in chapter 4 of the Horse and His Boy and it seems like the Lion is Gone, but I remember The Magician’s Nephew and Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when he was so close and speaking and real.
Notice, it says that I have trusted - or relied completely -in your steadfast love.
And you may know that steadfast love is such a crucial phrase - it’s one word in Hebrew - hesed that’s translated differently in almost every Bible because it goes to the heart of God and it cannot be incapsulated in one tiny english word
Other translations say -
Unfailing love
lovingkindness
Faithful love
Mercy
I was curious this week, what’s the first time hesed shows up in the Bible?
I thought it might be in Exodus having to do with the covenant of love God makes with Israel.
Actually, it comes in Genesis 19 with the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah.
You know the story?
Sodom and Gomorrah are these incredibly evil cities where people are being so cruel and terrible to each other that God decides to wipe them out completely.
But God’s chosen one Abraham - Lot’s uncle - pleads for Lot’s life and God saves Lot and his family.
And Lot says to the angels who are helping him flee the city as it burns to the ground -
Genesis 19:18–19 (ESV)
18 And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. 19 Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life…
So when David prays that I have relied on your hesed
He’s saying I was like Lot - and you saved me from the fire.
I was in Sodom and Gomorrah - and out of your mercy, your unfailing love, apart from anything I could do, I didn’t even know I was in danger - you saved me!
And so even though it seems like you’ve moved on from me, I know you’re the God who saved me.
Two points of application come from these final two verses
First, when it seems like the Lion is gone, hold onto memories of his presence.
If it feels like God is not close, when was a time that he was? What was that like? What did he say?
If it feels like the enemy has won and convinced you that you’re garbage, when was a time that your identity in Christ was certain? What was God saying then?
I often find myself fearing the future.
And one thing that helps is remembering God’s faithfulness in situations I was afraid of. How he came thru and that scary thing wasn’t that scary.
Second, when it seems like God isn’t saying anything, sing and pray with God’s people.
David says I will sing! This Psalm is a prayer from an individual, but it’s placed in the Psalms because it’s meant to be sung and read by all of us.
If you feel like you’re the only one who is in a dry season of faith, it’s not true.
If you feel like you’re the only one who isn’t sure about many things any more, you’re not alone.
Sing! Pray with others. Invite others in.
People deconstruct Christianity in isolation because Satan can pick them off one by one. We need each other.
A valid question at this point might be - what does a six verse prayer from an ancient Jewish king have to do with me?
What does the anxiety of the leader of a middle eastern nation state have to do with the prayers of a stay at home mom, a teacher, a grandparent in 2024?
Psalm 13 is a prayer that the Jewish people prayed as a nation for hundreds and hundreds of years as they waited for God to do what he said he would do - send the Messiah, the promised King.
God said that one day he would send the True King who would come and crush the true enemy - Satan himself. Sin and death would no longer gloat over mankind but through the nation of Israel, salvation would come.
And for so long they prayed, “How long, O lord? Have you forgotten your promise?”
Give light to our eyes lest we die as a people!
For generations he was silent.
And then, Jesus was born.
But, with no pomp. No press release.
But he appeared to a man named Simeon who kept the conversation going even though God was silent.
And as Simeon holds little Jesus in his arms he says,
29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
In Jesus, the light had come.
And even then, it took more time.
30 some odd years as Jesus grew and lived and taught and healed and was rejected by God’s enemies.
Psalm 13 is not just a human prayer, it is the prayer of THe Human, Jesus himself!
Jesus prayed in the Garden as he was about to die, God, if there is any other way, save me!
He was shaken, his enemies were gloating over him,
And on the cross, Jesus slept the sleep of death.
And God was silent.
Friday. Friday night.
Saturday. Saturday night.
Nothing. Where’d the lion go?
Then came the morning, that sealed the promise, as we often sing
Jesus rose! God’s salvation came.
And to all who put their trust in Jesus - the ultimate example of GOd’s hesed love - they are like Lot and are plucked from the fire because God’s chosen one had plead for their life.
For those who put their faith in Jesus will never truly sleep the sleep of death, but will have the light of life because God has dealt bountifully with them beyond anything they could have imagined.
Is Psalm 13 your prayer today?
Does it seem like God is silent?
Sometimes God’s answer takes time, a really long time. But he always keeps his word. And in Jesus, we see God’s steadfast love and salvation in perfect clarity.
Conclusion
In May, we went to Lake Chelan and we took Narnia with us, not sure if we’d finish The Horse and His Boy or Isabelle would officially ditch it.
Chapters 1-10 - no Aslan!
Maybe I made a mistake choosing this book.
Then one night as we sat down on the couch we came to chapter 11 - The Unwelcome Traveler.
Let me tell you folks, Chapter 11 is worth the wait.
When Shasta was most alone and in the dark fog, unsure of where to go next, Aslan comes. He comes to Shasta and tells him how at each point of the way, in chapters 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 he was there. He was with him. He was working. He had not left the building. He was close at every step of the way.
Still in the dark, Shasta only hears Aslan speak.
“Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too. The mist was turning from black to grey and from grey to white. This must have begun to happen some time ago, but while he had been talking to the thing he had not been noticing anything else. Now, the whiteness around him became a shining whiteness; his eyes began to blink.
Somewhere ahead he could hear birds singing. He knew the night was over at last. He could see the mane and ears and head or his horse quite easily now. A golden light fell on them from the left. He thought it was the sun.
He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion. The horse did not seem to be afraid of it or else could not see it. It was from the Lion that the light came. No one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful.” - The Horse and His Boy, 281-282
As I was reading, I was holding back tears.
Isabelle had no idea, but you get it don’t you?
Maybe today you’re in chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
You’re not alone.
Keep the conversation going. Keep reading.
Hold onto the memories of when the Lion was there.
Pray and sing with God’s people.
Because he’s still there. Still working.
Chapter 11 is coming and it’s worth the wait.