#2 How Long

Psalm 13 — Lament

There are days when prayer comes easily. Other days, you have nothing to say, or too much to say, and no idea where to begin. Sometimes you keep going, keep turning up, keep doing what needs to be done. Sometimes you can't. There may be something beneath the surface that you are afraid to voice.

Is anyone listening?

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me?” — Psalm 13:1 (NIV)

David asks 'how long?' four times in this short psalm. How long will God forget him? How long must he wrestle with his thoughts and carry sorrow in his heart? How long will his enemy triumph?

He doesn't tidy up his distress before bringing it to God. There is no attempt to make the words sound more faithful than they are. He is hurting, and he says so.

At Lighthouse, we are a community of people battered and bruised by the storms of life. Many of our brothers and sisters live with multiple and complex needs. Their stories are different, and I wouldn't presume to know what each person carries. But for some, the experience of not being heard runs deep.

We regularly sing Rod Stewart's 'Sailing.. It's one of those songs that seems to reach people in ways that are hard to explain. When we sing “Can you hear me?”, I wonder what those words mean to the people around me. What memories do they bring back? What has never been said? What happens when you've spent years trying to make yourself heard, only to feel that nobody is listening?

Sometimes the people who should have cared for us are the very ones who have let us down, or caused us harm. The circumstances may have changed, but the hurt can remain. Trust is not easily recovered when it has been broken by those who should have been trustworthy.

And sometimes the hurt reaches into our relationship with God. We find ourselves asking where he was when we needed him.

I think of Martha and Mary after their brother Lazarus has died. When Jesus finally arrives, Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Mary says the same thing. They believed Jesus could have helped. They had sent for him, and he hadn't come in time.

There is love in their words, but also a rebuke. Where were you, Jesus?

It is a hard question to ask of God. Harder still when there is no answer that makes sense of what has happened.

John tells us that Jesus wept.

Jesus knows what is about to happen. Lazarus will walk out of the tomb. Yet Jesus stands among those who are grieving and weeps with them. He doesn't tell them that their sorrow is misplaced because everything will soon be all right. He weeps.

I find myself returning to that detail. Even the promise of resurrection does not make their grief unreal. Jesus does not stand at a distance from their pain. He enters it.

That doesn't explain why some prayers seem to go unanswered, or why suffering can continue long after we have run out of words. The story of Lazarus doesn't give us a formula for what God will do next. Sometimes the person we have prayed for does not recover. Sometimes the situation doesn't change. We are left with the questions.

Psalm 13 does eventually turn towards trust in God's unfailing love. I don't want to lose that movement; it matters. But neither do I want to use the ending to silence the beginning. Some people find their way towards trust again. Others are still asking 'how long?' The psalm makes room for the cry itself.

At Lighthouse, we cannot mend everything that has been broken. We cannot explain away someone's past, promise that the future will be easy, or offer an answer to every question. Sometimes we can listen. We can sit alongside someone without trying to fix them, and stay when the conversation becomes difficult. It may not feel like much. It matters all the same.

Perhaps following Jesus means learning to do that: not turning away from another person's grief simply because we don't know what to say. We cannot always make things better. We can refuse to leave someone alone with their pain.

What is the question you keep bringing to God, even though you don't yet have an answer?

How long, Lord?

There are things I have carried

for so long

I hardly know where they began.

There are words I cannot say,

and questions I am tired of asking.

You know what has happened.

You know what remains.

Jesus, you wept

at the tomb of your friend.

Come close to those who grieve,

those who feel forgotten,

those who have called out

and heard only silence.

I don't know what to pray today.

I don't know what to expect.

So here I am,

with the question I cannot put down.

Can you hear me?

Amen.

Photo- Boar Lane, Leeds