“Not a dead end after all”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Psalm 13 (Forward, p. 72) CEV p. 561
Have you ever been down in the dumps, facing such a problem or calamity that there seems no way out? Well, here in today’s psalm, are some words that will surely be of help. Here we find a pattern that often crops up in the psalms. The psalmist begins with lamenting his woes, graphically and in no uncertain terms, but then ends up with a note of confidence that ‘things will turn out alright.’
Four times in just the first two verses, David cries out to God, “how long?” It seems to the psalmist that God is either hiding or has forgotten about him. And to David, who especially relished his relationship with God, and his closeness to God, this was especially grievous. And it’s not just that, but he finds himself confused and uncertain on one level and attacked on another. In both cases, he yearns for relief, and that quickly! How much like us this seems? Often, we too would like a quick resolution to our problems.
And then, as if to make his supplication even more convincing, the psalmist goes into greater detail what he sees as the issues, the problems that he is facing. He sees the eventual outcome, if nothing is done, as death and defeat. I’m not sure whether he is enlarging his sense of calamity, but he certainly is getting the message across. But isn’t this very much like many of us: our problems always seem so much bigger when we are amid them! It is easy to see them as major calamities or catastrophes.
But then, it would seem, the psalmist remembers, remembers the abiding loving kindness of His God. He remembers how God has been good to him in the past, how God has rescues him, and so has confidence that God will do so once again. And so, what seemed like a major catastrophe, such a dead end, is not really a dead end at all, but a chance for God to show Himself at work once again and the start of something new. And so it is with each of us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day?” (verse 2a).
“To complete the requirements for an academic course, I wrote a research paper on the psalms. The professor of the class was kind man and quite a brilliant scholar, widely respected for his writing about the psalms. He was so intelligent that whenever I was scheduled to have a conference with him, I practiced everything I planned to say and ask. I worried anxiously about how he would assess my written work as I waited for a response. And waited.
“We were nearing the end of the semester, and he still hadn’t returned the paper. As I saw him approach the pathway one morning, and with no preparation, I said, ‘How long, O esteemed professor, how long shall I have perplexity in my mind about your evaluation of my paper/’. Smiling, he observed that there are many ways to pray the psalms, and the Divine Mystery is not ours to solve.”
Moving Forward: “How do you handle anxious waiting?”