Psalm 13: How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?

I asked God the question, "How much longer, Lord?" Additionally, the harder the trial the more we direct the blame at the one source we know that can take it all away; God. As a Christian, I have found a common thread that runs through each trial. Right smack in the middle of that heavy dose of suffering and splash of uncertainty is Jesus.

We want the trial to end. We might get to that point of asking God to take it away. When it doesn’t there is one thing that might make it bearable. See, the length of the trial is the thing that always gets us.  As we are backed into the corner, It reveals not a faith that can mature through trials like it is suppose to but It comes down to the unknown and wanting that control for ourselves. If we knew the trial would end soon or how long the trial would go on for then we could probably endure the suffering til the end. We would probably even have a sense of pride and brag about how we overcame that trial.

Psalm 13 is very short but has crucial insight. It only has 6 verses. The psalm shows transition from questions of “how long” (first 2 verses) to praise and rejoicing (the last 2 verses). The psalmist (David) obviously is struggling with a trial but then finds resolve and in the end praises God.

So what is the in the middle of this transition? How does he go from a trial and the question of “how long?” to rejoicing? This is how simple it is. All this In two verses. It is a simple prayer to His Heavenly Father. His heart is exposed. He asks that He hears and answers him, and that He returns the sparkle to his eye and protects him from his enemies. His desire is not so much on him overcoming the trial or for it to go away. It is that place where he is not focused on a trial but the communion with His Heavenly Father. That simplistic faith and desire for God dissolves the pain of the unknown and that false control that drags us under. It shifts the weight of the trial to the only one that can walk with us through the trial and make the trial become fruitful. The fruit is called rejoicing. So in the end we ask, not “how long we have to endure?” but instead we state how long, how high and how deep is the fathers love. Instead of asking to know about the unknown God will replace it with a song. He will give us a sparkle. Today when we pray, pray for a sparkle. Pray for a new song.