Why are there times in my life when finding God is so difficult?

The first division gives us only the cry to Jehovah with the cause of the cry, this being the persecution of the humble by the wicked one. "Why standest Thou afar off, Jehovah? [why] hidest Thou Thyself in seasons of strait?" The previous psalm had declared God to be a stronghold in just such seasons (verse 9). Why such dissimilarity between the faith and the experience? But in truth faith in no wise rests upon experience here, but confesses that, as to His government, clouds and darkness may be round about Him. True, at last experience will come round to faith, and the exercise meanwhile be found needed and helpful. But faith is in the invisible, — sees Him indeed who is so, — has its ground, its arguments, is not credulity, but has sure evidence, all its own.

(v. 1) The distress of the remnant is occasioned, not only by the wickedness of Antichrist rising to its height, but also by the fact that, when it does so, he appears to prosper exceedingly while the godly are allowed to suffer. Moreover, God apparently hides His face as if alike indifferent to the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the godly.

(vv. 2-11) A description of the wicked man, his evil and his prosperity. The word “wicked” throughout this passage is in the singular. The use of the singular would show that the description given is characteristic of any wicked man, though doubtless it will have its full expression in one man — the Antichrist. Thus the passage is a description of the character of the Antichrist, without being a distinct prophecy of him personally.

The faith of the godly remnant in circumstances in which they are apparently forgotten by God.

In the course of this group of psalms (11-15) the distress of the godly soul deepens. In Psalm 11 he sees the “foundations” going: in Psalm 12 the godly man ceases and the faithful fail from among the children of men; in this Psalm (13) the soul reaches the deepest point of distress, for the circumstances would make it appear that God Himself has forgotten the soul.

(v. 1) Though tried by evil without and fears within, the grace of God sustains the soul. Hence the cry, “How long?” This is the language of faith that clings to God, knowing that He will put a limit to the trials of His people, and the evil of the wicked. Faith can ask, “How long wilt thou forget?” in the midst of circumstances which seem to say, “For ever.”

How interesting, in this respect, to find in each of the six days' work wherein, in Genesis 1, we have seen the type of just this new creative work, this same stamp exhibited! On the Sabbath of rest it can be at last omitted. Thus "the evening and the morning" constitute each "day." The day begins with light indeed, but with evening-light, destined, as it would seem, only to make haste to die out and disappear, but to have ere long its resurrection "morning." Here, one would say, the sole purpose of the psalm is to affix this stamp: God thus snapping the ties of nature in all that sin has blighted, ending all creature — so all self — dependence, that all our trust may fasten on Himself. Then, when we make Him all, we find Him all; the natural truth, that "in Him we live and move and have our being," becomes a spiritual truth, spiritually discerned and enjoyed. As here, the soul beginning with a groan ends with a song. We have passed through a tunnel of earth to the unveiled glory of heaven.

The six verses fall into three couplets, so that the six is really a 3 x 2. It is at once a discipline and a lesson in mastery that we have in them. The cry here is of one desolate indeed, although, as has been noticed, conscience is not accusing as in the sixth psalm. The psalmist cries a strange cry, bred at once of intimacy and estrangement, that Jehovah — the Unchanging — has forgotten! Then will His forgetfulness now not change? Will it be perpetual? Who, indeed, can read such a riddle as this? Clouds have hid the sun, but who would then identify the sun and the cloud? The cloud passes, but the sun abides.

We are not told what caused David to write this psalm that at this time found him so depressed; but it may have been while he was an exile hunted by Saul. While his faith was in the Lord, yet faith wavered in feeling the Lord had forgotten him, and the time seemed so long that he feared it might be lengthened forever (v. 1). Such experiences are indeed a trial of faith, and especially since there is no indication of failure or sin on David's part. Yet the believer today may be lifted high above his circumstances if he only takes to heart the truth of the word of the Lord Jesus, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (Heb. 13:5). If it seems He has left us, this word is sufficient to negate such a fear.

Yet the psalm is surely prophetic of the distress of the godly remnant of Israel in the Tribulation period. In fact, the same words, "How long, O Lord," are in the mouths of the martyrs under the altar in Revelation 6:10, though they will have been killed at that time. But here the psalmist asks, "How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?" Though the time seems interminable, yet it is God's wisdom that delays the answer, not only because He is patient toward the ungodly, but because He knows how needful it is for His servants to have prolonged exercise of heart in order for faith to be both tested and strengthened.

Verses 1-4. No Christian who knew the grace of God in truth could ever rightly utter the complaint with which this Psalm begins. For the standing of a Christian is a conscious acceptance in the Beloved. He is no more a stranger, but an heir of God. He is acknowledged by the Spirit as a saint, while his sins are forgotten of God through the one effectual atonement which has purged them all (Heb. 10:14-17). He is kept in Christ before the Father's face for ever (Eph. 1:6, 2:6). The knowledge which believers have of God is through the Holy Ghost; but that blessed Spirit is the witness of their exaltation in Christ into heavenly places, far above harm from every hostile power (Rom. 8:35-39). They have slept through their sleep of death in Him who died for them and rose again. They live now by the faith of Him; their life is hid with Christ in God (Rom. 6; Col. 3). If, therefore, they are called to suffer, it is by virtue of that grace which has already anointed them in Christ for the kingdom and glory of God (Phil. 1. 29, 30; 1 Peter 5:10; 2 Cor. 1. 21, 22). Peace with God is the true condition of every believer in the Son of God; it is known and practically enjoyed by all who are walking in the light (Rom. 5:1). The Light of life is in them as the Hope of glory (Col. 1, 27; Rom. 8:10.). The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord enables the simple believer, who tastes the sweetness of the love of Christ, to renounce willingly the pursuit of earthly things, and to glory even in tribulation, because he knows that such afflictions are a portion of that cup of gracious favour which, for Jesus' sake, it has been given him to drink, as it is ministered in wisdom by the Father's hand (Phil. 1:29; 1 Peter 4:12-13.). For a Christian, then, to speak of God's forgetting him, would be to betray his own forgetfulness or ignorance. of the grace in which he stands; for surely they whom He has brought nigh to Himself by the blood of His own Son are never out of the remembrance of His love. To think of God as hiding His face from him., would be to overlook the Mediator and great High Priest whom God has consecrated for the children's sakes, that by His ever-living intercession they might abide in an unchanged acceptance with Himself. It would be to mistake utterly the ground and principle on which alone God deals with those whom He has reconciled to Himself by the death of His own Son.

But an experimental condition, which in a Christian is contrary to the very terms of his confession, may be quite consistent in the case of one not brought as yet within that marvellous light. A Jew, so long as he remained in ignorance of the finished deliverance of the cross, and the blessings of the heavenly calling, would have rightly and of necessity, if quickened of God, an experience resembling that which finds expression in this Psalm. That Jehovah should hide His face from His people under the old covenant was strictly in keeping with the terms of the covenant itself. Their disobedience would be a provocation of His anger. The effect of this would be a disciplinary course of dealing, the very edge of which was the withdrawal from them of that manifested favour without which they were as a defenceless prey before their adversaries. So that they should say when suffering thus: "Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?" (Deut. 31:17-18.). The prophets who bore their testimony in the midst of Israel's declension continually recognize this moral position of the nation. "I will wait upon the Lord who hides His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him," (Isa. 8:17). is language which expresses the personal attitude of the faithful servant of the truth in the midst of general apostasy, while it intimates at the same time both the object and nature of that hope which sustained, meanwhile, the heart of the prophet of good things to come, as himself also a child of promise It was to Jehovah as the personal Security of national blessing through the fulfilment of the covenanted promises once made to the fathers, that the suffering witnesses of God at all times looked. The Spirit of Christ was in the Jewish prophets. That Spirit spake beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glories which should follow (1 Peter 1:11). But although to some readers of this book the assertion will appear both new and questionable, yet I do not hesitate to express my firm belief, that the heavenly glory of Christ as the Son upon the Father's throne, and the wondrous blessedness now revealed by the Spirit of promise to the church, as the anointed co-heir with the First-born of the Father's house, its glory and delights, never came within the field of any Jewish prophet's view.

How often have I learnt in such a season that I had not been living to the glory of God; that "Lo, I come to do Thy will," to suffer Thy will, had not been my principle of conduct; and God in such hours has seemed a strange God, a God I had neglected, and practically been living without. Self-ignorance, too, giving Satan power against us at such seasons; for, if we do not attribute to our own sin the having been living practically so far from God, not to be at home with His ways of dealing and with Himself, Satan will boldly inspire not only hard thoughts of God, but hard words against Him too.

How often have I learnt in such a season that I had not been living to the glory of God; that "Leo, I come to do Thy will," to suffer Thy will, had not been my principle of conduct; and God in such hours has seemed a strange God, a God I had neglected, and practically been living without. Self-ignorance, too, giving Satan power against us at such seasons; for, if we do not attribute to our own sin the having been living practically so far from God, not to be at home with His ways of dealing and with Himself, Satan will boldly inspire not only hard thoughts of God, but hard words against Him too.

There is more than the possibility, when your prayers are long unanswered, and your expectations languish, and the dark clouds of hopeless despair begin to settle down on your soul, that you say with Jacob of old (Isa. 40:27), “My way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed over from my God.”

A dark mystery seems to attach to the dealings of God with you. Things are not as in days past when His candle lit up your darkness and His sun shone on your path. You then prayed and were heard. You felt that you had abundance of help and sympathy from on high. Your sky was clear and your song triumphant. But now clouds, darkness, difficulty, sorrow, helplessness surround you, and your heart is crushed. And the sore experience continues. Did it last but a night and then be followed in the morning by joy and deliverance, you could bear it; but that deliverance comes not, and the one thing that makes life, for the man of faith, worth living—the realized, conscious help and smile and favour of God—are still withheld. If His loving-kindness be better than life, the lack of it is worse than death. “True, indeed,” you say. Hence you think that your way is hid from the Lord and your judgment passed over by God!