How long?
A child asks before a birthday, a patient asks awaiting release from the
hospital. How often do we
ask
How
long when
challenged by suffering, temptation or frustration?
How long? Psalm 13 puts the
question into a prayer-and-faith perspective, inviting us to cross the
bridge to prayer-and-faith answers.
How long, O Lord, will You forget me?
If we think about how God would answer that query, we may be
startled. The answer is an emphatic NEVER, because if God forgot us,
even for a moment, we would cease to exist.
Suddenly the burden of the other
How
longs
is lifted.
God’s timing is infinitely wiser than ours. This is solace in grief and
security in the press of struggle.
The little
How long in which we
think God hides His Face is actually the prelude to His gift of
everlasting light to our eyes that we may not
fall asleep in
death.
Suddenly we, like the psalmist, like St. Francis, have every reason to
sing and rejoice in a saving help which transcends all time.
We discover that the big question yields a better answer.
And we are able to declare in truth:
I trust in [His] merciful love!
How long?
It was Jesus who asked the sign-seeking, disbelieving multitude:
O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
How long am I to bear
with you?
Mark 9:19
But our Lord did not leave His
How
long as an expression of frustration.
With exquisite compassion, He asked the father who sought the
cure of his son:
How long has he had this?
Mark 9:21
That question became a bridge to the strengthening of the
father’s faith and to the healing of his afflicted child.
How long?
It is such a human question:
How long?
Well before the days of a watch-on-every-wrist and a
calendar-in-every-room, that creature of time which is man has pointedly
asked his Creator:
How long?
How long?
is the most frequently asked question in the Psalter.
It figures prominently in the brief but highly poetic lament
which is Psalm 13, recurring four times in the space of six verses.
While the repetition of
How long seems at first to lead to
a crescendo of despair, it is, in reality, a step on the path to a deep,
strong, and even joyful trust in God.
How long reminds us that all time
is God’s time. He is the
Master of every moment which comes to us from Him as a gracious gift and
a precious trust.
As for me,
I trust in Your merciful love.
Let my heart rejoice
in Your saving help.
Let me sing
to the Lord
for His goodness to me,
singing psalms
to the Name
of the Lord,
the Most High.
Look at me,
answer me,
Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes
lest I fall asleep
in death;
lest my enemy say:
“I have
overcome him,”
lest my foes
rejoice to see my fall.
How long,
O Lord,
will You forget me?
How long
will You hide Your Face?
How long
must I bear grief in my soul,
this sorrow in my heart
day and night?
How long
shall my enemy prevail?
PART 34
How long?
One suspects that St. Francis of
Assisi
experienced more than once the temptation to ask God:
How
long? But the
Little Poor Man turned this question into a bridge of faith when he used
Psalm 13 as the Compline psalm for Advent in his devotional Office of
the Passion. Asking
How
long in a spirit of Advent yearning enabled St. Francis to
cross into the realm of Christmas certainty. Thus Francis had every
reason to
rejoice in [God’s] saving help even before
His Son actually “arrived on the scene.”
Psalm 13