Psalm 13
Yesterday I put my New King James Version (NKJV) Chronological Study Bible on the shelf and grabbed my old Revised Standard Version (RSV). I’ve been using the NKJV many years; one thing I like in particular with this translation is capitalized deific pronouns and found myself disappointed that the RSV chose not to do that. (There are reasons for that – I’ll discuss at another time.) So I brought my NKJV back off the shelf and now I’ve got both the NKJV and the RSV, along with my NASB and our church’s ESV.
So this morning as I picked up that RSV bible and saw how torn the cover and binding were, I realized that it was January 1972, fifty years ago this month that I bought this bible at the beginning of my first semester back to college after a five-year lapse. It was a required textbook for a New Testament class that I was taking to fulfill a Humanities requirement. Then the Old Testament course followed in the fall semester. And it was because of this RSV bible that I met Jim, a second-semester freshman who was to lead me to the Lord some three-and-a-half years later. I am again intrigued at how the Lord leads in our lives! At a public institution (U. Illinois) a bible sequence was offered as an alternative to other sequences. I was to read Moses and Isaiah and Jesus and Matthew instead of Cicero, Shakespeare, Hawthorne and others. GLORY!
As for today’s Psalm 13: How long??!! David begins four questions in the first two verses with “How long…?”. It strikes me that he was a bit exasperated at the Lord not delivering him from his difficulties and making him endure them day after day, week after week, month after month…!!! But always faithful, he is confident of the Lord working in his life and rejoices in that thought in the last two verses: …my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. (v. 5b) So my heart goes to things for which Carol and I have been praying for a long time, praying, we believe, “in God’s will”. But “how long”? How long, Lord? How long?
I have connected with this Psalm more than the previous ones. David was a King but still had his shepherd soul. Yes the world got to him; he bought into the lie that because he was King he could do whatever he wanted but his soul didn’t. Oh I have been there many times. Thank you God for my soul that recognizes You as my King, to whom I answer, You who forgives my sins if I humble myself before you and ask for forgiveness.