How Long, Oh, Lord? - Oh God #2

How long, Oh, Lord? - Oh, God #2
Psalm 13

Listen to clip of song "Psalm 13 (How Long)" by Brian Doerksen

I am more hungry for Your bread than natural bread!

• Man shall not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4
• For He satisfies the longing soul, And fills the hungry soul with goodness. Psalm 107:9

“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.
Who knows if He will turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him –
A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly” Joel 2:12-15

Passion of the Psalmist
Psalm 13 - A Psalm of Lament
Praying In Silence Restore the passion!

Psalm 13 Outline

• Vss 1-2 –– The Question
  • The WHY
  • The Weeping --- A Requiem
• Vss 3-4 –– The Petition
  • The What
  • The Wanting --- A Request
• Vss 5-6 –– The Answer
  • The How
  • The Way --- A Resolution

Vss 1-2 –– The Lament

• The WHY! ~ Weeping ~ A Requiem
  • “How Long” – four times repeated in the two first verses
• “The bread of sorrows is sometimes the saint’s daily bread; our Master himself was a man of sorrows.” - Matthew Henry
• “Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery; to humble his heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven." - Adam Clark
• Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? - Corrie Ten Boom
• Jeremiah 29:13 “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”
• I Thessalonians 5:17 "Pray without ceasing"
• The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.- F.B. Meyer
• Jim Elliot, a missionary slain by the Auca Indians in the 1950's, once said:
  • “God is still on His throne and man is still on his footstool. There's only a knee's distance in between.”
• “If your problems are long-standing, try kneeling.”