When God Seems Silent

Prayer

(Greeting)

Let’s Pray

Father, we come before You today to thank you for your Word and for the grace that allows us to hear and proclaim it today.

Father we pray you send your Spirit to open out hearts to see the glory of your son Christ Jesus

Help me to speak truthfully and clearly, let me decrease so that you may increase and let Your Word transform us.

For those weary, bring comfort; for the lost, bring salvation.

Above all, may Christ be glorified. In His name, we pray. Amen.

Scripture Reading

If you have your Bibles, let’s turn to Psalm 13. As you get there let me set the scene.

Psalm 13 is a Psalm of David, written during a time of deep distress and apparent abandonment. We don’t know the exact situation but it reflects a prolonged period of suffering.

David faced a number of situations where he was suffering

Fleeing from Saul

Absalom’s Rebellion- Where his own son rebelled against him

Betrayal by Friends and Counselors

Personal Sin (Bathsheba)

I think it’s a fair bet to say our pal knows a thing or two about suffering. Let’s hear what he has to say about it. Let’s stand for the reading of Gods word.

Psalm 13 CSB

How long, Lord? 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? Consider me and answer, Lord my God. Restore brightness to my eyes; otherwise, I will sleep in death. My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,” and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in your deliverance. I will sing to the Lord because he has treated me generously.

Intro

Suffering is hard. But prolonged suffering—when relief doesn’t come, when prayers go seemingly unanswered—that is excruciating. This is where faith is tested. This is where Psalm 13 meets us.

David cries out, “How long, O Lord?”—four times in just two verses. This is the language of deep distress, of a heart wrestling with God’s silence.

But notice: David is not simply venting his emotions into the void. He is still praying. Even in his anguish, he takes his complaint to the only One who can do something about it. This tells us something crucial:

Doubt and despair are not the opposite of faith—abandoning God is.

Psalm 13 teaches us how to bring our struggles to God in a way that leads to deeper trust, not despair. Let’s go through it verse by verse and see what we can pull out.

1. The Cry of Abandonment (Verses 1-2)

David feels forgotten here, but very clearly he is not. David’s life is full of Gods provision and blessing. However whatever present circumstance David is facing, he seems to have lost that feeling of Gods remembrance.

That distinction is critical, just because he doesn’t feel God’s presence or see him moving doesn’t mean he’s not. Our emotions are real, but they are not always an accurate reflection of reality.

I want to take a moment and challenge the idea that our emotions define reality.

Our culture says that our feelings dictate our reality. That our pursuit of happy feelings and attenuation of negative feelings, are of the greatest importance.

How good are we at the second part, attenuating our negative emotions? Personally, I’m terrible at it.

Sidebar: In winter of 2000, Tim Keller preached a fantastic series on emotions (podcast links available on request).

David feels forgotten by God and his experience tells him that God is absent. But is that true?

No. God has not abandoned him and will eventually send His Son through this bloodline. This distinction, what we’re feeling vs. what is true is critical.

Feelings are like waves—they rise and fall, but the rock of God’s promises never moves.” We know the song “Rain came, wind blew, but my house is built on you” this is what that means.

How often do we mistake our emotions for ultimate truth?

• You feel unloved—so you think you are unloved.

• You feel like God is distant—so you assume He has left you.

• You feel like nothing will ever change—so you convince yourself that suffering is pointless.

But our feelings do not define reality—God does.

Keller gives this illustration:

Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. Your heart is racing, and for a moment, you believe the dream was real. You feel fear. But was there ever any real danger? No. Your body reacted to something that wasn’t true. This is how emotions work—they are real in the sense that we experience them, but they are not always a reflection of what is truly happening.

RC Sproul said

“Faith is not grounded in emotions; it is grounded in truth. Our feelings change, but God’s promises do not.”

This is what David is wrestling with. In suffering, Satan through out emotions whispers, “God has left you,” but faith must declare, “No, He has not.”

Some of you are feeling this right now. You’ve been praying for healing, but the sickness remains. You’ve been waiting for a job or internship, but the door hasn’t opened. Maybe you’re longing for restored relationships, but nothing seems to change. Like David, you’re wondering, ‘How long, Lord?’. This psalm gives you permission to bring that pain to God honestly.

2. The Fight for Faith (Verses 3-4)

Faith is Not Passive – It is a Battle

David does not give in to despair. He does not resign himself to hopelessness. He fights! He pleads!

Look at the urgency of his words:

• “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God.” – He is pleading, crying out. Consider me, answer me, turn your face to me. God please!!!

• “Light up my eyes.” – He is desperate. Without God’s intervention, he feels he will lose hope completely.

• “My enemy will say, ‘I have triumphed over him.’” – If God does not act, David knows that his suffering will be used as proof that his faith was meaningless.

Piper says “Faith does not mean we never feel doubt—it means we fight to see God as more trustworthy than our doubts.”

Faith is not passive resignation—it is an active struggle to hold onto God when everything in us wants to let go.

But a struggle for what? There are probably many ways to answer this but I think one of the most fitting is that it’s a battle or clarity

David says, “Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.” I think this phrase is super important. David is asking for physical protection probably but more importantly I think he’s asking for spiritual clarity.

Why? Because suffering clouds our vision.

When we suffer, we become spiritually nearsighted:

• We focus only on the pain, not on what God is doing.

• We focus only on the delay, not on His perfect timing.

• We focus only on the enemy’s triumph, not on our ultimate victory of Christ.

David is asking for perspective—for God’s light to break through the darkness. Paul prays for the same thing for the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 1:18:

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope to which He has called you.”

Faith is a battle for vision—not physical vision, but spiritual sight.

Notice the way David addresses God: “O Lord my God.” It’s written in all caps in my Bible, same with y’all’s? What does that mean?

This is covenant language. The LORD is yaweh.

This is the personal, covenantal name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3.

JI Packer says “God has bound Himself to His people—not because of their faithfulness, but because of His own steadfast love.”

This is the God that David is crying out to, not a distant or generic god.

Even in his suffering, David is clinging to the covenant relationship

• He feels abandoned, but he knows Yahweh is a promise-keeping God.

• He cannot be truly forgotten because God has committed Himself to His people

• This is personal—David is saying, “I may feel abandoned, but You are still my God.”

David’s appeal is an appeal to God’s faithfulness. David is saying: “You have made a covenant, and I am calling on You to remember it!”

It is also an act of faith. -> Even when he feels abandoned, David still calls on God by His covenant name.

Additionally, look: David is not appealing to his own righteousness. He doesn’t say,

“Answer me, God, because I have been faithful.” He doesn’t say, “Save me, because I deserve it.”

No, he appeals to grace.

• He is holding onto God, not because he has been perfect, but because God is faithful to His covenant in spite of our sin.

• He is saying, “Even when I don’t see You, I trust that You are still mine.”

Do you see the power in that?

It’s so easy for us, when we are suffering, think: “Maybe I’m suffering because I’ve failed God. Maybe I haven’t prayed enough, haven’t been faithful enough, haven’t obeyed enough.”

But David’s faith isn’t in his own performance—it’s in God’s unchanging love. This is the gospel.

Tim Keller writes:

“The gospel is not that we go up to God; it’s that God has come down to us. If our standing before Him was based on how we felt on any given day, we would be lost. But it’s based on the finished work of Christ, and that is why we can trust Him—even in the silence.”

This faith is what David is relying on to get through the troubled times. But we have something even greater than David had.

David felt abandoned, when in reality he wasn’t. Jesus felt abandoned but was actually abandoned.

• On the cross, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

• He took the full weight of our separation, our abandonment, so that we would never have to.

• He faced true abandonment so that we could have eternal assurance.

So when we pray, “How long, Lord?” we do so knowing that the answer is “Not forever.”

• Jesus’ resurrection proves that suffering does not have the final word.

• The cross proves that silence does not mean absence.

• And one day, when Jesus returns, every cry of “How long?” will be swallowed up in victory.

3. The Joy of Trust (Verses 5-6)

We’re rounding 3rd…let’s bring it home.

Now is David’s breakthrough moment, when the lament and anguish that he’s been pouring out turns into praise.

But notice… David’s circumstances have not changed.

• He is still suffering.

• His enemies are still present.

• His prayers have not yet been answered.

And yet—something has shifted inside him.

Look at how the psalm moves:

1. Verses 1-2 → Deep lament (“How long, O Lord?”).

2. Verses 3-4 → Fighting for faith (“Light up my eyes.”).

3. Verses 5-6 → Confidence and rejoicing (“I will sing to the Lord.”).

What changed? David made a deliberate choice to trust.

• “But I have trusted in Your steadfast love.”

• “My heart shall rejoice.”

• “I will sing.”

“I have trusted in Your steadfast love.”

The Hebrew word for “steadfast love” (hesed) means God’s covenant-keeping, never-failing, always-pursuing love.

• It is the same love that sustained Abraham when he waited decades for God’s promise.

• It is the same love that upheld Joseph through years of imprisonment.

• It is the same love that remained with David, even when he felt abandoned.

• And it is the same love that sent Jesus to the cross for us.

This is why David rejoices—not because he sees the answer, but because he sees God.

“My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.”

Notice David doesn’t say, “I rejoice because my suffering is over.”

He doesn’t say, “I rejoice because You have already delivered me.”

He says, “I will rejoice in Your salvation.”

This is future-oriented faith.

• He is rejoicing before the answer comes.

• He is singing before the rescue arrives.

This is what real faith looks like.

• Not waiting until life is easy to praise God.

• Not waiting until every prayer is answered to trust Him.

• But saying right now, in the middle of suffering, “I will rejoice, because I know my God is faithful.”

Tim Keller puts it this way:

“God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything He knows.”

David does not know how his situation will end—but he knows God is good.

So he chooses to rejoice.

“I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

This is a stunning declaration.

• David began this psalm feeling forsaken.

• Now he is declaring that God has been generous to him.

How can this be?

Because David is not looking at his immediate situation. He has been able to zoom out and see the bigger picture of God’s faithfulness.

• He is remembering all the ways God has been good to him in the past.

• He is rehearsing God’s character, not just reacting to his pain.

• He is choosing worship, even when it costs him something.

This is where the fight of faith leads—not just to endurance, but to joy.

Conclusion: The Hope of the Gospel

Psalm 13 begins in anguish and ends in adoration.

It starts with “How long, O Lord?” and ends with “I will sing to the Lord.”

What changed? Not David’s circumstances—but his trust in God’s steadfast love.

David teaches us something critical: Faith is not the absence of suffering—it is trusting in God even when suffering continues.

And so, the question for us today is: How do we fight for faith like David? How do we hold onto joy when we feel abandoned?

1. Remember God’s Past Faithfulness

• David says, “He has dealt bountifully with me.”

• He recalls God’s goodness, even in the midst of pain.

• This is how we fight despair—by remembering how God has been faithful before.

Preach to yourself: “If He was faithful then, He will be faithful now.”

Immerse yourself in the scripture. Learn more about the character of God and his hased love for us.

2. Choose Worship, Even When You Don’t Feel It

• David says, “I will sing.”

• This is a choice, not a feeling—worship is a weapon against despair.

Tim Keller says:

“Sometimes, the only way to feel joy is to sing until you believe it.”

Worship shifts our focus from our pain to God’s character. You may not feel joy at first, but when you focus on who God is, your heart will begin to respond.

3. Anchor Your Hope in Christ

• David rejoiced because he trusted in God’s salvation.

• We have an even greater assurance—because we know how the story ends.

• David looked forward to salvation.

• We look back at the cross and the empty tomb.

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection:

• We know our suffering is not meaningless.

• We know the silence of God is not abandonment.

• We know joy is coming—if not in this life, then in eternity.

Psalm 13 doesn’t end with relief—it ends with trust.

And that’s where we must land.

Will You Trust Before the Answer Comes?

Will you rejoice in salvation even while you are waiting?

Will you worship even in the midst of the suffering?

We will all cry, “How long, O Lord?” at some point.

But through the gospel, we know the final answer: not forever.

Every “How long?” will one day be answered.

• Either in this life…

• Or in eternity, where every tear will be wiped away, and suffering will be no more. (Revelation 21:4)

So until then, we fight.

We trust.

We sing.

Not because life is easy—but because God is faithful.

Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Father in heaven,

We come before You, humbled by Your Word, strengthened by Your truth, and reminded of Your steadfast love.

Lord, in our suffering, we confess that we are quick to forget Your faithfulness. Like David, we cry out, “How long, O Lord?” We wrestle with doubt, with fear, and with the weight of silence. But today, we choose to trust—not because our circumstances have changed, but because You do not change.

Help us, Lord, to remember Your past faithfulness and To preach to ourselves that You are good, You are near, and You are working—even when we cannot see it.

Help us to worship, even when we don’t feel like it.

To lift our voices in praise, not because life is easy, but because You are worthy.

Help us to anchor our hope in Christ alone.

For we know that through the cross and the empty tomb, that our suffering is not in vain.

That Your silence is not Your absence.

That our waiting is not forever.

Lord, for those who are weary today, bring comfort.

For those who feel forgotten, remind them of Your presence.

For those battling despair, restore brightness to their eyes.

And above all, let Christ be glorified in our lives—

in our waiting, in our trusting, in our singing.

We thank You, Lord, that every “How long?” will one day be answered.

And until that day comes, we will trust, we will fight, and we will sing.

In the name of Jesus—our Savior, our Rock, our Redeemer—Amen.