The World
Is Not Fair… (Psalm 13)
INTRODUCTION
“This is not fair!” Perhaps you heard that from your child very often. A mother shared with my wife about a recent conversation with her two kids. The older one complained to her mom “It’s not fair!” because she has to go to school and have homework to do while her younger brother can stay home and play all day. After hearing that she turned to the younger sibling and asked him “Do you have anything to complain about?” To that the younger brother replied, “It’s not fair. Why does my sister can go to school while I am stuck at home.”
From kids let us turn to the adults. I went to a fellowship Bible study meeting recently. We were studying an epistle of Paul. For some reason I didn’t know the topic was switched to hardship in life. A sister protested: “This is not fair! Why sister Haifang has to suffer with her brain tumor for the past two year?”
Perhaps no one has a perfect answer to those questions. Only God does. Where is God when it hurts? Does He really care about my suffering? How should we react in times of suffering? Psalm 13 gives us a glimpse of light to those questions. If you are enduring any kind of hardship right now I hope that you can find strength is God’s Word.
EXPLANATION
Psalm 13 is
a sincere prayer to God in times of the psalmist’s difficulty. It can be
divided equally into 3 sections that contain 2 verses each.
I. A Prayer
of Exclamation – How Long? 歎息的禱告 – 多久？(v.1-2)
I would call the first section of the psalm a prayer or exclamation. The psalmist asks the question “How long?” twice in each of the first 2 verses.
A. Abandonment 遺棄
In v. 1 the psalmist exclaims for he feels that he is being abandoned by God. He pushes his question to the extreme and interrogates God: will you abandon me forever? He uses two lively expressions to describe his feelings. He feels that God has forgotten him and seemingly fails to acknowledge his existence. Then he said God hides His face from him. Even if God knows he exists He deliberately chooses to ignore him.
B. Affliction 痛苦
Then in v. 2 the psalmist exclaims because of the affliction he is facing. His affliction comes from two sources. He has sorrow in his heart because of the pain. The expression here “wrestle with my thought” can be literally translated as “take counsel in my heart,” which is close to the Chinese translation. The psalmist is having a struggle in his heart, evaluating the circumstance and trying to make sense of everything he is facing. Then another source of his affliction comes from the oppression of his enemy. It is not specified in the psalm who his enemy is. We can take it as an actual opponent 死對頭, a disease or a problem in general. The afflictions from these two sources can be either physical or mental, or both. The fact is, the psalmist is experiencing difficulties both from the inside and from the outside.
When we are in a difficult situation we all want the problem to go away quickly. Many of us can testify that waiting is a hard lesson to learn. Once there was person prayed to God this way: God give me patience and give me now! The pain of suffering itself is hard to bear. But an even tougher emotion to endure is the feeling that God seems to be far away. Does He seem to care when we suffer?
A book titled “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” 好人遭殃 was published in 1981. The author Harold Kushner wrote the book in response to the fact that his own son was diagnosed with a disease called progeria, which causes premature aging and early death. Kushner is a Jewish rabbi and he got his insight after studying the book of Job in the Bible. I have yet to read the book and so for those who have done so please correct me if I say anything incorrect. There may be a lot of wisdom in the book but there is a fatal mistake with Kushner’s proposition. Kushner questions why a loving God would allow people to suffer for no reason. But since it does happen then Kushner concludes that God is either not a God of love or He does not have the full power to restrain those tragedies from happening. To Kushner he would rather choose the omni-benevolence of God over His omnipotence. It is as if God shrugged His shoulders said to those who are suffering that “Sorry, I can’t help it.” Does that offer any comfort to those who are suffering? I think not. If God is really that incompetent why should we put our trust in Him? We may as well just grind our teeth, depend on our own strength and just hang tight.
But the psalmist shows us that our God is personal enough that we can utter our grievance to Him. He is merciful enough to listen to our cry for help even to the degree of allowing us to question His love. You may ask: is it a sin to question God? If your doubt leads you to disbelief like Kushner then I believe it is a sin. But if doubt helps us to re-examine our faith in God and hence draws us near to God then doubt may be a good thing. Remember when Jesus resurrected from the death Thomas really had doubt about it. He said, “Unless I put my finger through the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and put my hand into Jesus’ side, I will not believe it.” The next time when Jesus appears to the disciples He invites Thomas to examine His body. God desires to increase our faith when we have doubts. Say to God that you do not only want to know about Him from the Bible but you want to know Him face to face as you struggle in your hardship. Keep waiting until God gives you an answer. That is exactly what the psalmist did.
II. A
Prayer of Expectation – How Bad 期望的禱告 – 多慘 (v. 3-4)
From vv.
A. Desperate 絕望
First in v. 3 the psalmist expects God to save him from a state of feeling desperate. He prays to God for light to his eyes, which is another way of saying: give me strength. He feels that he does not have any energy to go on.
B. Defeat 征服
Then in v. 4 the psalmist expects God to save him from a state of defeat. He prays that God will save him from the trouble situation otherwise his enemy will find pleasure in his fall. If you think about it this is quite an interesting way of asking God for help. His concerns are not only about deliverance from hardship, but also the ridicule he has to endure from his enemy before the deliverance comes. Ultimately, the psalmist has the glory of God in mind. If he, being a servant of God does not get help from God, then God the protector and provider may take the shame that He is not able to save His own servant.
God desires to glorify Himself even in the midst of our hardship. There is a story in John 9 about Jesus’ healing of a man who was born blind. The disciples of Jesus ask their Master whether this blindness was a result of this man’s own sin or the sins of his parents. Jesus’ answer was “neither,” “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3) Through this miracle of healing Jesus wanted to show the people that He is God. Does this kind of things happen in real life? It sure does. A man called Nick Vujicic was born with no arm and no leg. He accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior after reading John 9. He testified, “God won’t let anything happen to us in our life unless He has a good purpose for it all.” He sees God’s glory being revealed as He is using him just the way he is and in ways others can’t be used. Nick travels the world to spread the gospel and love of Jesus. Nick says, “If I can trust in God with my circumstances, then you can trust in God with your circumstances.”
It is natural to ask God for help to remove our problems so that all our suffering would be gone. The psalmist pours out his heart before the Lord. But besides asking “What about me?” he also asks “What about You?” He understands that God’s glory and reputation is at stake whether he stays or falls. This is an aspect of prayer we can learn from this psalm. In the midst of our hardship we can ask God to glorify Himself in our suffering. How does it all work out in reality? You see, when you are in hardship not only you but the non-believing people around you are eager to know whether or not the God you believe would come to your rescue. Your complaint or your act of disbelief, for example you take short cuts knowing that God would not be pleased with that can become evidence to others that your God is not trustworthy. During my seminary years when I was juggling between school work, family and church ministry very often I felt that I was on the verge of giving up. One prayer I often said to God was “Lord, please do not let anything take away my joy in You.” God honored my prayer and gave me strength to go on.
III. A Prayer of Exaltation – How Sweet! 讚美的禱告 – 多美！(v. 5-6)
So far in the first 4 verses we have a gloomy picture – the psalmist suffers from spiritual, emotional and physical turmoil. Where can he turn for help? There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. But in v. 5 to 6 a prayer of exclamation and expectation turns into a prayer of exaltation. What causes the change?
A. Greatness 偉大
Verse 5
begins with the word “but.” By “but” it means that even though nothing has
changed his decision is not restricted by that fact. He thinks of the greatness
of God, in particular His unfailing love and His salvation. What kind of love
is that? Most believers know in the New Testament Greek that the word love is
either “agape” or “phileo.” In the Old Testament a common word for love is
“hesed,” which is used here. It can refer to the kindness a person shows to a
person or the piety of
Then in the same verse the psalmist mentions God’s salvation. By salvation it may not necessarily mean salvation of one’s soul. A better translation would be “deliverance,” meaning being saved from a dangerous or difficult situation. Notice that the word “rejoice” is repeated in verses 4 and 5. The psalmist does not want his enemy to rejoice at his fall, but he determines to rejoice over God’s greatness instead.
B. Goodness 恩惠
Because of his joy over God’s greatness he can sing about His goodness in v. 6. He looks back in his life and affirms that God has been good to him. Here the translation “good” in NIV does not carry enough weigh. The original language means “deal bountifully.” The goodness the psalmist experienced was not stingy but lavish. From his past experience he can testified that God showed abundant goodness to him. That reason alone causes the psalmist to turn from moaning into singing.
When we are in a difficult situation ultimately we are faced with a mental struggle: should we trust our feeling, the circumstance or God? It may look like that nothing has changed – I have not received any relief from my problem and God remains silent and unmoved. But there is something more permanent than those issues. God Himself has never changed. God’s greatness is a part of His eternal character. That is a truth. His goodness is showed in how He dealt with us in our past. That is a fact. When you are hurting you have to go back to the basic and ask yourself: what kind of God do you believe? How did He prove to be a loving and faithful God in what you experienced in the past? But think of that time when He healed your family members from diseases big and small, or the time when He provided you with a new job soon after being laid off, or the time when He protected you from a terrible car accident. The list goes on and on. You may be facing a new challenge this time, but God’s track record proves to you that His love and faithfulness stands forever. He deserves your total trust.
CONCLUSION
Recently I sent a card to a church member who is in hardship. You know why Hallmark and those card-makers are so successful? Those artists are smart enough to put whatever you want to say on the card. Therefore, all you need to do is to write the recipient’s name, date and sign it. I went to a grocery store and picked a perfect card for that person. It has a nice little poem and a Scriptural verse. Everything I wanted to say was pretty much there. All I added was another Scriptural verse. I also wrote 3 short lines – He cares, He knows, He can. This is the God we believe. He cares about you when you are hurting because He is a loving God. He knows exactly what you are going through because Jesus Christ became a man to get a taste of what human life is all about – He experienced sorrow, betrayal, abandonment, shame, pain and even death. He knows exactly how you feel. He alone can give you the help you need. Offer your problems to Him and put your trust in Him.
Is the
world fair to you? Perhaps not. The blessing from God you now enjoy may be very
different from others’. The hardship you now face may also be different from
others’. But one thing is common for all of us: we have the same God who takes
care of us. The world is not fair but God is good. Let us say together that
“God is good.”