How Long, O Lord?

Abraham Wright on Psalm 13.1

How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord, for ever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?

We are ready in all our troubles, when we find not present help at hand, to suppose the Lord to be far from us. We are impatient of delay, we cannot endure to wait the Lord’s leisure, so soon as we are entered into the furnace of affliction, by and by we think that God should help us; every moment and minute, appeareth to be a day, and every day a year unto us, until He scatter the coals, and pull us as a firebrand out of the fire. This made our prophet in the heat of affliction to cry out, how long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever. By which we see that the children of God are wonderfully assaulted, and the flesh wrestleth against the Spirit, and sometimes prevaileth, and for a time gets the upper hand. But seeing God is never far from us, however He may seem to delay and defer His help, let us learn (how great soever our afflictions be) not utterly to despair of God’s mercy; but to consider, that however God often deferreth to help us, yet He is still present with us. It is the will and pleasure of God to try our faith, to stir up our zeal, to exercise our patience, and to teach us to make greater account of His blessings when we have obtained them.