Psalm 13 / Rick McNally / June 30, 2025

— Recovery by study of Scripture and God’s presence — 

I was at a concert the other night by a rock band from the 2000s.  One of their lyrics is such, focusing on the “back burner” part.

“Yeah, you know you gotta help me out. / Yeah, don’t you put me on the back burner. / You know you gotta help me out, yeah.” Brandon Flowers

It’s a bit like a prayer here; help me, don’t put me on the back burner of life.  If you’ve ever gone through a hard time in life, you have felt a bit like being placed on the back burner.  I felt that line, and in the middle of this 40,000-person rock concert, my mind went thinking, and I came to the conclusion that God has put me on that back burner, but he was not done with me yet.  I was placed there on purpose, for my good.  Others might have meant it for another reason (see Joseph), but God meant it for my good.  I knew it all along, but I couldn’t see it, and I couldn’t feel it, and I needed to process what was going on for a few good months for my mind and heart to see it together — as one.

Well, with that knowledge, we will try to leave my situation behind and enter into the life of David.

This psalm before us is a lament (a complaint to God) that is by David, and it is a strophe in structure (which means that the structure is more paragraph-like in form).  

Psalm 13, Paragraph 1 / The Back Burner of Life

How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever? / How long will you hide your face from me? / How long must I take counsel in my soul? / And have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemies be exalted over me?

The presence of God seems to be gone.  The connection with the Lord seems to be terminated.  God seems to have abandoned David.  That is how he feels.  The Psalms are much more about “feeling” than most other genres in Scripture.  David feels orphaned by God.

He feels that God has forgotten him.  He feels that God is hiding his face, and he has no connection.  He feels so alone that he cannot pray like he used to, and that his counsel is happening “in” his own soul and with his own soul.  If you’ve struggled in life, you understand this.  You think about your issue, you overthink your issue, you play it over and over in your head.  It becomes oppressive.  With that overthinking come sorrow.  The Hebrew word here denotes mental agony, mental grief; it is not physical pain but internal hurt.

At the end of this paragraph is an external result of these internal struggles.  His enemies are taking advantage of his situation.  Whether they are the cause is unclear, but they do like the fact that he is incapacitated and “exalted” over him.  The Hebrew word for exalted here is a picture of being “over” or “raised above.”  He is brought low, the enemies are exalted.

Broken man, forgotten by God, struggling in his soul, in agony in his mind, exalted over by those around him.

David is in a state.  It’s not good.  If David can find himself there, can’t we all?

Psalm 13, Paragraph 2: Simple Requests

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; / Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, / lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him” / lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

David feels that God is hiding his face from him. This is a phrase that shows up in the Old Testament with some regularity.  God hides his face from us sometimes when we are distant from him or not listening to his Word.  God sometimes disciplines us in these ways.  It is a hard place to be.  

David’s requests are quite simple; consider me (look my direction) and answer me (listen to this prayer and please, please answer).  This middle section feels a bit like the point when we recognize that distance God has placed between us and our need of him.  We need God, and the distance has made that obvious.

Beyond these two first requests, there comes a third: “light up my eyes.”  It is a plea for vitality to replace sorrow, and life to replace death.  In a real way, he feels like he will die.  He is asking God to bring joy back into a joyless existence.

His reasoning has a lot to do with the people who are gloating over his misfortunate situation.  He says, “I don’t care for those people to be prevailing over me.”

The word “shaken” here is a word that means “to sway, to stagger, to totter.”  He’s on shaky ground without his Lord, and he is shaken. To recover, he needs the strong tower.

The fact that God did listen is evident in the third paragraph.

Psalm 13, Paragraph 3: Trust, Rejoicing, and Perspective

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; / my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. / I will sing to the Lord / because he has dealt bountifully with me.

But — things have changed.

David has three responses to this “back burner” issue that he is going through.  To trust, to rejoice, and to sing.

To trust.  It has this idea of “throwing oneself down before” another.  To humble, to allow the other person to be Lord and King.  To remove self from the “driver’s seat” and allow the other person to be the authority.  God is that authority.  We are all but children who need to climb into the backseat of life and strap ourselves in our car seats and let our Father drive.  God was like a steadfast father.  David fell before his Father.  There is a sense of repentance here, with no details given.

To rejoice.  Here, “salvation” is not eternal but from the issue at hand.  God is going to work it out in his life. David knows it now, and he will internally rejoice.  He will write a poem about his troubles.  God’s going to fix it.  He will rejoice before the salvation comes, and then again after.

To sing.  Not only is he going to rejoice about it internally, he is going to belt it out.  These two words are similar in meaning, but the idea here is he is going to make noise about it with his mouth to God.  Other people might hear, but he’s going to praise God with his lips.

Why Did David Do These Things?

Because he recognizes that God “has dealt bountifully” with him.  

When troubles come and you or I are placed on the back burner of life, we don’t initially feel this way.  My personal troubles came to a head 8 months ago — eight months! — and I’m just starting to feel alive again.  There are setbacks.  There is trauma to process.  There are feelings to feel and deny, there are feelings to feel and accept.  There’s a lot.

The back burner stinks.

But in the end, when possible, he realized that God wasn’t trying to break him but to benefit him.  It didn’t feel that way at first.  It felt like a punishment that was vindictive.  But God didn’t mean it that way.  God was dealing “bountifully” with him, even if he couldn’t see it right away.

There are two divergent word meanings to this Hebrew word.  The first is “to spare, to save:” the second is “to wean, to complete.”  Taken together, God meant the thing that David went through to be something that would save or rescue and something that would help him grow in the future.  To deal bountifully.

Such is God’s desire in our lives.  That we come to him.  Be honest with him.   To bow before him and find salvation and growth.

If life hurts, maybe a new tactic is in order.

He is the one to turn to.  Take the next step.