How Long, O Lord?

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? Psalm 13:1-2

It’s easier to be patient when you know roughly how long something will last. We often ask, “How long?”

How long, O Lord, how long is this sermon going to last?

Paul preached til midnight. In Ezra’s day, the people stood for the reading of the entire law. The entire law. Even in the rain.

How long, O Lord, will I be sick or disabled?

It wouldn’t surprise me if the lady who had an issue of blood for 14 years asked this question. Or the 40-year-old man born blind. I’ve asked it after being sick for one or two days.

How long, O Lord, til I can get married?

How long, O Lord, til this marriage is over?

Sometimes asking “how long” just makes us sound like bored children on a long trip. Are we there yet?

But sometimes the question is legitimate. Many of the psalms incorporate cries of, “How long?!” For example, the psalmist pleads in psalm 6:2-4:

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled; But You, O Lord—how long? Return, O Lord, deliver me! Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake!

In Psalm 94:3 the question is, “Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?”

Sometimes the problem is with God’s own people. That’s who Habakkuk was talking about when he asked God, “ O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ and You will not save,” (Habakkuk 1:2).

Sometimes we wonder why God doesn’t return to judge the earth. Like the writers of old, we don’t understand why He permits evil to continue for so long.

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:8-9

Do you know how God responded to the martyrs in Revelation 6:10-11 who “cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’”

The answer may surprise you. “Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.” Would you or I volunteer to be a martyr for the cause of Christ if it meant His return would come sooner?

(Shiver)

Perhaps that question should inspire us to greater patience.

You see, God also sometimes asks, “How long?”

In Exodus 16:28, after some of the people went out to gather manna on the Sabbath, the Lord said, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?”

Years later God inspired Joshua to say to Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers has given you?” (Joshua 18:3).

God asked through the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 18:21, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”

I wonder if God is ever asking about us:

How long will you go without worshiping Me? Or praying to Me?

How long will you spend watching sports or movies before you get up and go outside to enjoy My creation?

How long will you leave my word on the shelf?

How long will you keep committing the same sin?

Maybe God is waiting on us to do something. Not to become martyrs perhaps, but maybe just to repent. Maybe the longsuffering of 2 Peter 3:9 is for me.

We don’t always know how long things will last, including God’s patience. We may not like waiting on God. But it’s much more important to make sure He isn’t waiting on us.

Dear God, help me to be more patient, trusting in Your timing and wisdom. And please forgive me for the times I have kept You waiting. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

by Christie Cole Atkins