Devotionals

How Long?

by Leona Mingo
06/12/25
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“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and hear me, O LORD my God; enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; lest my enemy say. ‘I have prevailed against him’; lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.” Psalm 13:1-6

The psalmist, bowed low by his oppression, feels forgotten by the LORD and asks Him for a time line that will mark the cease of the sufferings that are presently his. But how he feels is really irrelevant to the truth that the LORD has not abandoned him, nor is He aloof from his pain and perceived desolation. When he takes counsel in his soul, all he gets is sorrow. He feels so low under his enemy’s exaltation, but is he really at the mercy of his enemy when his enemy himself is subject to the LORD?

He asks the LORD to consider him but the LORD has had him in His sight all along. He asks the LORD to hear him when His ear has already been open to his cry.

Because I rest in the certainty that I am never forgotten by the Lord, and that He does not hide His face from me, I would be foolish to take counsel in my own soul when “feeling” oppressed. I can always be assured of His eye upon me and His ear open to me. May I take advantage of this reassuring reality, by His grace and for His glory.