Covenant-Clinging

I can't tell you guys many times I've asked the question.

There have been a few times in my life where I have been stuck in the first two verses of Psalm 13, asking over and over and over again: “How long?”

This is not the “how long” screamed from the back seat of the car from the child wondering “are we there yet?”

This is not the “how long” accompanied by the growling belly of the hungry asking when dinner will be ready.

This is the “how long” of the person questioning God, looking for God, wrestling with God, wondering why God would allow all this to be.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve asked this “how long” we find in Psalm 13.

David asks “how long” four times in two short verses—“how long, how long, how long, how long?”

The questions that David asks are questions that we have, no doubt, asked; even if we haven’t verbalized them, they are our questions. In fact, I’ve said many times: “This is my psalm.”

In verses 1-2 of this great Psalm, David asks,

Psalm 13:1–2 NIV

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? 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?

Boy, he’s honest. He’s direct. He’s open and clear. He gets right to the point with the Lord.

The first “how long” is so important.

DAVID ENGAGES WITH THE COVENANT GOD

You’ll notice the word LORD in all capital letters. We’ve seen this before (all over the OT; the Psalms are riddled with it).

This—LORD—is the tetragrammaton, the four letter designation of the Lord’s covenant, personal name: YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah.

This is the name God chose as His personal name by which He related to His chosen, covenant people.

It was the name Adam knew from the beginning. It was the name God used when He revealed Himself to Abram, promising redemption and a nation. This name was used when God explained His purposes to Moses as “I AM who I AM.”

You see, this is significant; this is not sermon fodder, sermon filler.

Allow your imagination to place you in David’s sandals at the worst moment of his life, whatever that might be. He’s hurt, he’s angry, he’s outraged.

And he’s asking, “How long, how long, how long, how long?”—this, likely with some anger and attitude.

David asks “how long” and adds to the end of his first “how long” a “Yahweh”. “How long, LORD?”

David uses the personal name of the Lord, here. You see, the faithful continue to engage with the Covenant LORD through the good and bad.

Whatever the situation, he is calling on the God of his fathers; he’s remembering the covenant God has made; he’s reminding himself (and possibly reminding God) of the covenant that was made.

David’s faith—even in the muddy waters of life—enables him to conclude that his welfare rested in the hand of God; that the Lord Yahweh was concerned about him.

“How long, Yahweh? Hmmm? Remember me? I’m your people! Are you going to forget me forever?”

David questions the Lord. How dare he question the Lord?

I think this—questioning God—is one of the moods of faith. Throughout the Bible, men and women of faith have questioned God—from Abraham and Sarah to Moses to Hannah to Job and David and Habakkuk; and many more whose questioning isn’t recorded here.

Why, you ask, do I think that questioning God is okay and even proper? It’s right here in Psalm 13. Look at the heading under Psalm 13—For the director of music. A psalm of David.

David wrote this song, this psalm for the director of music. This means what you think it means. This song was for the gathered assembly of the Lord’s people to sing. In worship. Together.

Can you imagine? 100, 200 faithful Israelites singing “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

It doesn’t sound much like a song that we’d sing in church; and yet we know that the Old Testament people of God sang this song—it was in the Psalms, the Psalter: their hymnbook.

“Our opening hymn this morning is Hymn #13—How Long, Lord?”

Questioning God is an important part of faith for the faithful. It’s good that David is questioning God.

It’s equally as important that David remembers God’s covenant promises. All the while David questions God, he remembers that He is the Lord; He is Yahweh.

David finds himself in a dark, dark place. He is in deep distress regarding his relationship with God, his own emotions, his enemies. Every corner of his life is touched by darkness and depression and sadness. He is low, low, low.

Not too many years ago I was as low as I could get—personally, financially, emotionally, spiritually. I was low, low, low.

I was 23 years old: jobless and almost completely broke.

I had $6 to my name, you might remember the title of the book I almost wrote: I Have $6: The Heartbreaking Tale of a Young, Devastatingly Handsome, Out-of-Work Pastor.

I had resigned my first full-time ministry and sunk into a pit of deep, deep darkness. I could say, without much melodrama, along with the author of Psalm 88, “Darkness is my closest friend.”

My hopes and dreams of being something special, someone important were dashed not two years after college. I found myself wallowing in self-despair. I had a number of people reach out to me—friends, really good friends, college professors, the president of my college, pastors, loved ones—but this, to no avail.

There I was, stuck. Depressed. I’m not sure I ever got quite to the point of being suicidal, but I might have been close.

And then, it just kept piling on. My hometown (and my childhood along with it) was wiped off the map by one of the largest tornadoes on record. My dad’s cancer kept advancing, to the point of surgery and chemo-induced mustache-less-ness (he didn’t really have any hair to loose, but his mustache fell out). I worked and worked and worked but there was always more month at the end of the money.

During this time, my life was all self-loathing and depression and anger and sin; I hurt absolutely everyone I loved. Everyone. My beautiful girlfriend (who is now, by the grace of God, my wife), my parents, my friends, my church family…

I wish there was an expression that would capture it all. Something like, “when it rains, it pours…”

It was just so much. And it just kept on coming, one thing right after another, beating me down, wave after wave, over and over…

Psalm 13:1–2 NIV

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? 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?

Like David, I found myself in a whole bundle of trouble—feeling as if God was absent, dealing with my feelings and sorrow, believing that my enemies were winning the fight.

The thought and the feeling that God must be absent, well, that was the worst feeling of all. I think David and I probably felt some similar emotion; we could both ask: “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

These questions were my questions—“How long is this going to continue? Here I am, ready and willing to serve you and yet all of this went so badly, and so quick. What’s the deal, God?”

This is the idea of the hiddenness of God. The consistent testimony of the Church down throughout the ages suggests that there are times when we feel the hiddenness of God. That is, that God is withholding some level of practical help from us, His people. And we don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense.

It’s what the story of Job is all about. It’s what David is getting at here. The law of averages would have me believe that I’m not the only one who has ever struggled with this—believing God was absent or hidden.

It’s one thing to be beaten down by life.

It’s another to be abandoned.

Sometimes we’ll take our tiny, 7-pound dachshund for ride in the car. She loves to go for a ride; not sure why, but she does. If one of us gets out of the car and runs into the store, Peanut goes crazy. She starts running from window to window, from the front of the car to the back of the car; she whimpers and whines and cries, until she sees us again. I’m sure in Peanut’s peanut-sized brain she’s convinced we abandoned her and we’re never coming back.

Like a kid in Walmart who can’t find their mom—it’s absolutely heartbreaking for the child; they don’t understand what’s happening. They’re scared, they start to think their momentary lostness is become permanent abandonment.

In this life, the most severe suffering is the idea that God’s presence has been withdrawn.

David wonders why the Lord has abandoned him, wonders how long the Lord is going to hide His face, wonders how long God is going to be inside the store and he’s going to be locked in the car crying for Him…

I don’t think David is seeking a specific answer. I don’t think David expects the Lord to answer his “how long” with a specific: “Well, David, in 3 months, 6 days, and 14 hours…”

I don’t think David’s so much looking for an answer as he is look for presence. The word there in verse 1 translated “face” is the same word for “presence”.

In other words, David is asking how long the Lord is going to keep Himself from David; what David needs is the Lord, but he feels that the Lord is conspicuously absent—nowhere to be found.

That might be the worst part of David’s trouble, but not all of it.

David is wrestling with his thoughts—ever been there?

Your thoughts keep you up at night?

Your thoughts prevent you from working?

You are so in your head you can’t be anywhere else?

Day after day, David deals with sorrow on a heart level. There is sorrow in the core of his being—who knows why; it could be because Saul was trying to kill David, or because David’s own son hates him and wants him dead, or because David’s sinful lust has broken relationships and he’s an accessory to murder before, during, and after the fact; because his and Bathsheba’s infant son dies; it just goes on and on and on. His sorrow is a daily sorrow.

David’s enemy—whichever one of the many—is triumphing over him; the “bad guys” are winning and the “good guy” seems only to lose; he’s only, ever, always losing.

Dale Ralph Davis writes:

“It’s one matter to wade through crud and darkness and anxiety and mockery, but when you never seem to come out on the other end, when you seem to be marooned in the thick of the mess and hanging on by your fingernails and days pass and nothing changes and God doesn’t meet your last conceivable deadline before you cave in—what then? How much longer?”

As you read these first two verses of Psalm 13, tell me: does the Bible understand us or what?

This, sadly, is our story; this is our song. I hesitate to tell you, but I need to:

Christian, if you’ve never experienced the feeling that God might just be absent, hiding His face from you; if you’ve never wrestled with your thoughts or dealt with sorrow, if you’ve never felt that your “enemy” is triumphing over you…you will.

Someday, as you journey along in your walk with Jesus, you will experience some or all of what David is experiencing.

This, never mind what you might hear on TV, is the life of the Christ-follower—not necessarily the totality of the Christian life, but certainly part. You will, at some point, alongside David, ask, How long, how long, how long, how long?

Notice what David does next. After he laments his station in life (that’s what verse 1 and 2 are: David lamenting, grieving), David prays.

DAVID PRAYS WITH COVENANT EXPECTATION

He moves from lament to prayer.

David laments—“How long, how long, how long, how long?” And then he prays, verses 3-4:

Psalm 13:3–4 NIV

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.

David directs his grief and sorrow and lamentations to God in prayer.

This is incredible. Do you get what’s going on here? David has just spent the first two verses railing against God, screaming, yelling “HOW LONG, LORD?”

And now he prays, Look on me and answer me…LORD my God.

David prays to the God he just accused of forgetting him and ignoring him. He prays to the God he believes is hiding His face from him.

“This is lousy logic, but excellent faith.” - Dale Ralph Davis

This is the reaction of faith. What we feel about God doesn’t undo what we know about God.

“Faith,” says the author of Hebrews, “is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see.”

So even when the Lord seems to turn a deaf ear to us, the believer will simply keep coming back to Him. It’s almost a spiritual knee-jerk reaction.

David prays. He pleads with God to look on him and answer, to consider him and hear him.

David prays something that's a little foreign to us—give light to my eyes. This is a Hebrew idiom, meaning to give strength, to renew, to invigor.

In 1 Samuel 14, Jonathan said a little honey lit up his eyes, gave him strength and energy to continue on in pursuing the enemy.

So here, David is asking, praying that the Lord would give him strength, would empower him, would renew his ability to endure.

David prays “Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death, lest my enemy say, ‘I have overcome him,’ lest my foes rejoice when I fall.”

If the Lord doesn't give light to his eyes, if God doesn’t intervene he will “sleep the sleep of death”, his enemies will gloat and rejoice when he falls; apart from the Lord's strengthening, David will be undone.

So it is with us. This is why we pray: for strength from the Lord.

And when we pray with covenant expectation, we know that the God who has promised will act.

David laments and he prays. And then he comes, somehow, to the last two verses.

DAVID FASTENS HIMSELF TO GOD’S COVENANT LOVE

There’s no indication that David’s circumstances have changed. There’s no sign that all is now going swimmingly for the ol’ chap. Life likely still kind of stinks...

What David says, he says amidst all his anguish and sorrow and trouble and doubt and despair.

David’s life isn’t all of a sudden perfect, no stress, no problems. David’s life is far from being all rainbows and fairy tales and puppy dog kisses.

And still…there’s this turnaround in verses 5-6. It’s absolutely incredible. It’s earth-shaking. It’s simple, yet profound. It’s beautiful.

Psalm 13:5–6 NIV

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.

Please note that David is not looking inwardly here. “He’s not saying that he has gotten a fresh boost of self-esteem or that he’s begun to feel better about himself.”

The answer to your problems is not to start thinking more positively.

The answer to your problems is not to “buck up” or to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

The answer to your problems does not lie in yourself.

This is either terribly bad news or gloriously good news, depending on your perspective.

If you want to believe along with some smiley-faced, fortune-cookie pastor from Texas that you can have your best life now if only you believe and will it to be so—this is going to come across as terribly bad news.

If you are ready and willing to believe, along with David, that the answer to what you’re going through is found outside of you, this is going to be the best news in the wide world.

David isn’t trusting in himself or his own ability. Not at all. David fastens himself to the Lord, to Yahweh and His unfailing love—But I trust in Your unfailing love.

Unfailing love is the word hesed. You know this word, I’ve beat this horse to death.

What is Yahweh’s hesed?

Your Bible might read steadfast love, lovingkindness, or simply love, maybe mercy.

Hesed is, first and foremost, a miracle. The Lord speaks about Himself in Exodus saying, “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and rich in hesed and fidelity.”

You remember when He said that? After His people had worshipped something other than Him; they bowed-down to a golden calf in the very shadow of the mountain where God was hanging out with Moses.

Moses hadn’t even made it down the mountain with the covenant documents before they had already shattered the covenant, like a bride being married and then going to bed with someone else on the wedding night.

God made and keeps His covenant with a whole mess of sinners. The reason? Hesed.

Hesed has no right to exist. It doesn’t make sense. Israel had no reason to expect it; hesed is faithful love that should not be, except for the fact that it’s the way God is in the depth of His being.

Hesed is not just love; it’s loyal love. It’s not just kindness, but dependable kindness. It’s not just affection, but affection that has committed itself. Hesed is love that refuses to let go.

David fastens himself to the hesed of the Lord.

Hesed is the unguessable and lavish friendliness and love of God. And with this hesed, God pledges to dog your tracks all your days—surely Your goodness and hesed will follow me, pursue me, chase me, track me, tailgate me all the days of my life.

In the middle of what might be the worst time of his life, David stakes his whole being on the unfailing hesed love of God.

David remembers the unfailing, unfaltering love of God and rejoices in [His] salvation—David knows that God will deliver Him sooner or later.

When we remove ourselves from the immediate situation and remember how God has expressed faithfulness to us in the past, we can rejoice and sing the Lord’s praise because we know He’s good and that He doesn’t change.

If you must, look as far back as the cross; look as far ahead as eternity. You will see that the Lord has been good to you. You will see that the Lord is good to you. You will see that the Lord will continue to be good to you.

David can sing and rejoice—not because everything’s hunky-dory—but because He realizes that the Lord has been good to him and no circumstance in life can change that.

Psalm 13:5–6 NIV

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.

>I love this psalm; it’s been my go-to psalm for the past decade. “Covenant-Clinging”—I’m kind of proud of that term; it came to me this week, not out of an attempt to be clever (I’ve given up that pursuit) but in an attempt to sum up David’s action. I think “Covenant-Clinging” is an accurate description of what David’s doing here.

He’s clinging to, fastening himself to, engaging with the Covenant-God.

For us, on this side of the cross and the empty tomb, the Covenant-God has sealed His promises to us in the blood of His One and Only Son, Jesus Christ.

As heirs of this new covenant, we can rejoice in our salvation—the salvation we have by faith in Jesus Christ. It’s secure. It’s complete. And it’s freely given.

We can trust in God’s unfailing love always and forever. In Christ, God has been so, so good to us; He has dealt bountifully with us.

Friends, I hope you will follow David’s lead—not as a moral example, not as a good person (he wasn’t either of those). I hope you will follow David’s example and cling to the covenant, to the New Covenant, to Jesus who shed His blood for your sins, died your death, absorbed God’s wrath in order to make you—an enemy of God—right with Him.

In good times and in bad, we can/should/must cling to Him, to who He is (LORD, Yahweh), and trust in His unfailing, covenant, “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever hesed Love.”

Cling to Him. He’s holding onto you; hold onto Him.