The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Classic Version, 2015Sample

How Long, O Lord?

Have there been times in your life when you have found yourself wondering ‘How long, O Lord?’. How long will the pain last? How long this sickness and suffering? How long this grief and sadness? How long will these troubles and battles persist?

Pippa and I sometimes visit St Peter’s Brighton, one of our church plants. At the end of one service, a woman came up to me and told me that for thirty-seven years she had been praying for her husband to find faith in Christ. For thirty-seven years, she had cried out, ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ 

She said that when St Peter’s reopened in 2009, her husband decided he would like to start coming to church with her. As she was telling me this, her husband came over and joined our conversation. He told me that the moment he walked into St Peter’s, he felt he had come home and had been ‘reborn’. Now he loves the church and comes every week. God had heard his wife’s plea. Throughout our conversation she kept repeating, with a huge expression of joy on her face: ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’

‘How long, O Lord’, are the opening words of our psalm today. Four times in quick succession David cries out, ‘How long …?’ (Psalm 13:1–2). Yet he ends by saying, ‘I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me’ (v.6).

The context of these words is not a naïve, superficial or over-optimistic view of life. Rather, in spite of everything he has been through, the psalmist is able to see the goodness of God. This theme of God’s goodness during the trials and difficulties of life runs through today’s passages. 

Psalm 13:1-6

1.    Cry out to God during the dark night of the soul

Dark Night of the Soul is a poem written by St John of the Cross (1542–1591). He describes the painful experiences that we sometimes endure as we seek to grow in spiritual maturity and in our relationship with God.

There are periods when it appears that God has forgotten us (v.1a). It seems that he has hidden his face (v.1b). For some inexplicable reason we don’t sense his presence with us. Every day seems to be a struggle – wrestling with our thoughts (v.2a). Every day seems to bring sorrow (v.2b). We seem to be losing the battle and the enemy seems to be triumphing over us (v.2c).

In the middle of this dark night David continues to cry out to God, ‘Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes’ (v.3). We see four things that we should continue to do during the ‘dark night of the soul’:

• Keep praying 
  In this psalm he pours out his heart to God. It is so important not to give up praying even when God seems far away.
• Keep trusting
  ‘But I trust in your unfailing love’ (v.5a). ‘I’ve thrown myself headlong into your arms’ (v.5a, MSG). It is relatively easy to have faith when things are going well, but the test of faith is when things do not appear to be going well.
• Keep rejoicing
  He does not rejoice in the trials, but in God’s salvation. He says, ‘my heart rejoices in your salvation’ (v.5b). ‘I’m celebrating your rescue’ (v.5b, MSG).
• Keep worshipping
  ‘I will sing to the Lord’ (v.6a). He remembers all that God has done for him. As we begin to praise and worship God, it brings perspective to our problems.

Sometimes, I find it helpful to look back on my life and thank the Lord for bringing me through so many of my own personal struggles, disappointments, and bereavements, and to remember how through it all ‘he has been good to me’ (v.6).

Lord, I worship you today. Thank you for your goodness to me. Thank you for your salvation. Thank you for Jesus, my Saviour. Lord, I trust you for the battles ahead. I trust in your unfailing love.

Matthew 15:10-39

2.    Join the struggle against sin, sickness and suffering

Delay does not negate the promises of God. As we saw in the psalm, God does not always change our situations immediately. Sickness and suffering will not finally be eradicated until Jesus returns. These stories, and our experiences of miracles and healings, are a foretaste of what will happen then.

The goodness of God is revealed supremely in Jesus. Once again, in this passage, we see the amazing goodness of Jesus and how he deals with sin, sickness and suffering.

• Keep renewing your mind
  Jesus says that our problem is not about superficial things, such as what we eat (v.11). He points out that ‘whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body’ (v.17). The things that harm us come from inside – ‘what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart’ (v.17 MSG). The real issue is sin in the heart, ‘For out of the heart come evil thoughts – murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make you ‘unclean’ ’ (vv.19–20a).

The challenge of Jesus’ words is that while we may not have committed murder or adultery, all of us fall at the first hurdle. The very first attribute that Jesus mentions is ‘evil thoughts’. The solution to our sin is not external rituals, like the Pharisees were suggesting. Only God can change our hearts. We need the help of his Holy Spirit to transform and purify us.

• Keep praying for healing
  There are few things more painful than seeing your own children suffering. The Canaanite woman’s daughter was ‘suffering terribly’ (v.22). She must have cried out in her heart, ‘How long, O Lord?’. But she kept on asking for healing and refused to be discouraged by the fact that Jesus did not seem to be answering her request. ‘But she came and, kneeling, worshipped him and kept on praying, Lord, help me!’ (v.25, AMP).

Jesus saw that she had ‘great faith’ and he healed her daughter (v.28). He went on to heal ‘the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others’ (v.30).

• Keep acting on behalf of the hungry
  Not only does Jesus deal with the issue of sickness (v.22 onwards), he also cares deeply about suffering caused by hunger. He says, ‘I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry’ (v.32).  

Jesus is able to do a lot with a very little. With the small amount of food given to him he feeds the crowds. If we give him the small amount we have in terms of our lives and resources, he is able to multiply them and use them greatly.

If Jesus cared so much about temporary hunger how much more must he care about the hundreds of millions of people in the world today suffering from hunger and malnutrition. As followers of Jesus we need to act on behalf of the hungry today.

Surely everybody would approve of Jesus. But no. The Pharisees were offended (v.12) when they heard him. If even Jesus offended people by what he said, it is not surprising that many people are offended by what Christians and the church say today.

Lord, help us to guard our hearts and our mouths from everything that makes us unclean. Give us your compassion for suffering people, whether it is from sickness or hunger or any other cause. Come, Holy Spirit. As you pour your love for us into our hearts, may it pour out to others.

Genesis 43:1-44:34

3.    Hold on to hope through trouble, misery and grief

Jacob could have prayed a prayer similar to the psalmist. He must have cried out, ‘How long, O Lord?’ (Psalm 13:1a). His sufferings seemed to go on and on. We read that he has been grieving for his lost son for over twenty years. Now there is a severe famine (Genesis 43:1) and he faces the prospect of losing his much-loved Benjamin. He asks, ‘Why did you bring this trouble on me ...?’ (v.6). He says, almost in resignation, ‘As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved’ (v.14).

Eventually Jacob simply had to trust God and let go of his son Benjamin. When he did so, things worked out. Very often it is not until we let go and commit a situation into the Lord’s hands – perhaps fearing the worst – that God is able to work it all out.

The writer of this section of Genesis is a brilliant storyteller. He draws out the agony. Judah knows that if his father loses Benjamin – as well as Joseph – it would probably kill him. He speaks of the ‘misery that would come upon my father’ (44:34). All the while, we – the readers – know that Joseph is actually still alive and that through it all his dreams are being fulfilled (43:26–28). Joseph is ‘deeply moved’ and has to look for ‘a place to weep’ (v.30).

Joseph puts his brothers to the test. Judah is a changed man. Earlier he had callously sold his brother into slavery (37:26–27). Now he is willing to give his life to save his brother: ‘Let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy’ (44:33).

We see here that through all the unexpected twists and turns of this story God is at work, bringing about his purpose. He is always working on our character and enabling us one day to look back and say, ‘The Lord … has been good to me’ (Psalm 13:6).

As we read this through the eyes of the New Testament we are reminded that God sent his only Son Jesus to save us. Jacob had to send his ‘only’ (‘He is the only one left’, Genesis 42:38) son Benjamin to save the whole family.

Lord, thank you for the amazing way in which you work your purposes out in our lives and in history. Thank you for your goodness and for your love. In the difficult times, when we are crying out, ‘How long, O Lord?’, help us to keep praying, trusting, rejoicing and worshipping.

Pippa Adds

Genesis 43:1–44:34

This passage is so moving and leaves us on a cliff-hanger. So much hurt, jealousy, deceit and unkindness had gone on by them all. Joseph tests them to see what is in their hearts. Have they changed? Do they regret their actions? When Joseph saw his brothers bow down it must have been so tempting to say, ‘remember those dreams? … Didn’t I tell you?’. Some things are revealed for our own encouragement, but are better not said to others.

Notes:
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.