PSALM 6:6–10 How Long?
READ: PSALM 6:6–10 (2 PETER 3:8–10)
V. 3B “But you, O LORD—how long?”
It’s not easy to wait for something you really desire with all your heart, is it? Like a birthday. Or help in times of trouble. David was dealing with that latter one. His soul was troubled because of a serious illness. He longed for healing, or at least for some vindication over against those who said his illness was God’s punishment for a sin. “How long?” David groans. “How long, LORD, until you hear my prayer for relief?”
The LORD can sometimes take a long time to bring about a resolution or to bring us to acceptance when we’re dealing with trials. How often don’t we read a similar cry in Scripture? In Psalm 79:5 Asaph said, “How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever?” And in his prayer Moses wrote, “Return, O LORD! How long?” (Ps. 90:13). These and many more were anguished cries for the LORD’s promised deliverance.
God can sometimes appear to be slow in fulfilling his promises to help. Peter wrote about the day of Christ’s return in glory to judge the living and the dead, warning that there will be people who doubt the coming of that day. But he exhorts us, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9). We all belong to that “some” group. Don’t we all arrive at places where it’s painfully clear that our sense of time must be different from God’s? In our fast-paced lives we measure time in moments, but God measures it by thousands of years.
He knows that he can often appear slow to us. That’s one reason he gave us the Bible. It shows throughout that God is not slow but enormously patient in working out the fulfillment of all his promises. Think of the coming of the Saviour, of how long God’s people needed to wait for his arrival. And as we wait for him to fulfill his promises, we are being taught to humbly rely on him alone. It turns out that waiting is good, for as Peter adds, the Lord “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (3:9).
David eventually came to repentance and acceptance (Ps. 6:9–10)—and we can too. Cry out your troubles to the LORD and let him lead you in the same way.
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