Psalm Meditation 945
Proper 12
July 29, 2018

Psalm 13
1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
(NRSV)

As soon as things fail to go the worse than we planned we are tempted to feel abandoned by God. At least until something happens around us that really does feel as if God has walked away and left us where we stand. The temptation is to believe that God is the one who left us and that it was done on purpose. My wife and I often get separated while shopping because one of us, usually me, gets distracted by something. When I look up I am alone and have to catch up, find my way back.

There are times in which God leaves us so that we can discover a strength, a skill, a need that we would not know we had any other way. As scary as it can be to be left to our own devices, there comes a time when it is important to learn that we are capable. The first morning that mom didn’t lay out socks with our school outfits, my little brother and I went downstairs to let mom know that she forgot. She let us know that she did not forget, she thought that we were old enough to pick out our own socks. Within a few days we were picking out clothes ourselves. We had not been abandoned or forgotten, we had been trusted.

While it may feel as if we are abandoned, we are not. Whether we have been separated from God due to choice on the part of one of us, or due to some randomness around us, God is with us, God is present in a way that may be beyond our ability to see at the moment. We may learn a skill or discover a strength we would rather not have, and still, God is with us, surrounding us with steadfast love.

July 23, 2018
LCM