How Long
“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle in my soul, with sorrow in my heart each day? How long will my enemy dominate me? Consider me and respond, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death, lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes rejoice when I fall. But I have trusted in Your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation.”
— Psalm 13:1-5 (BSB)
About a third of Israel's songbook is made up of complaints like this one, sung together as well as alone. In this short text the same question comes four times in a row. Nothing here says that someone sinned and is suffering for it; there is only a person who does not know why God is silent. A hidden face meant withdrawn favour, like a king looking away from a subject. The talk of sleeping in death shows this is not a low mood but a matter of life and death. Between the plea and the last line the text records no answer and no change of circumstances. The Hebrew word behind loving devotion is God's faithfulness to those he has bound himself to, and the turn at the end rests on that alone. God is not offended by this question, since he let it be written into his book.
There are requests you have been repeating for months, and nothing changes: work, test results, a marriage, a child who does not call, lonely evenings. At some point your prayers turn polite and short, or they stop, because it does not seem right to complain. You show him a calm you do not have. Jesus on the cross also cried out to God, asking why he had been forsaken. So a complaint is a conversation with God, not the end of one. You can tell him today how it actually is.
Four times: how long
- 1Write to God today, on paper or in your phone, four sentences about what you have long been asking for with no result. Begin each one with the words: how long. Do not soften it and do not make excuses for him. Only at the end, if you can, add one sentence: and still I trust you.
- 2If you have no such thing today, write those four sentences on behalf of someone who is waiting: someone ill, someone out of work, someone who has lost a person.
God, how long? You know what I am asking about, and since when. I do not understand your silence and I will not pretend I do. Even so I am bringing this to you, because I have nowhere else to go. Look at me and answer. Amen.
I write to God today: how long? And I do not soften it.
Is it allowed to talk to God like this?
About a third of Israel's songbook is made up of complaints, sung together as well as alone. Since words like these are in the Bible, they are not a lack of faith but one of the ways of talking to God.
Why does trust suddenly appear at the end?
The text records no answer and no change of circumstances. The trust rests on God's faithfulness to those he has bound himself to, not on things having improved.
What if I cannot add that I trust him?
Do not force it. Say as much as is true. Bringing this question to God is already a turn toward him.