Lent #17: Discipline 3 of 7–Prayer.

How long, O Lord?

(Psalm 13)

This is no fun. I thought maybe a day or two, maybe even a week or two. But, every morning greets us with bad news: “The virus continues to spread.” One of these days, we are assured, all this “sheltering in place,” all this “social distancing” will bear fruit; and, the viral arch will bend towards the good. We can’t help wonder with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?”

John Calvin, one of the church’s hero theologians, assures us that God has placed boundaries on Satan’s mischief. Malevolence messes with us, but God has decided to stick with his creation. He won’t let it go Satan’s way. God redeems creation for himself. We wouldn’t even raise the question “How long, O Lord?” if we didn’t believe it was so. Psalm 13, like all psalms, is a prayer; and further, it is a prayer sung by God’s people. The Psalms are both a prayer book and a hymn book. That’s how Psalm 13 ends: “I will sing to the Lord…”  We sing the psalm as we wait for God’s benevolence to boundary Satan’s malevolence.