445_God’s delays are not his absence

Psalm 13 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

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

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

A young girl planted a seed in a small pot on her windowsill. Each day, she watered the soil and sat by the pot, watching, waiting, expecting. When nothing happened even after a week, she grew restless. Two weeks in, still nothing. She tapped the soil, poked at it gently, and even tried moving the pot to different windows to catch better sunlight. Finally, she gave up. But her grandmother quietly continued to water it. A week later, a tiny green sprout appeared. The seed was never dead—it was just working in silence.

Waiting for deliverance can be frustrating, sometimes agonizing. Especially when you feel forgotten. Especially when there is no answer, though you pray persistently, and trust God with your deepest desires. Yet heaven remains silent. Psalm 13 voices this cry. Four times in just two verses, David asks, “How long, O Lord?” The question breathes his feeling of abandonment. Like many of us, when God delays, David starts to wonder: Has God forgotten me?

When we are overcome by our foes, we assume God isn’t listening. We confuse His silence for indifference and His delays for rejection. But Scripture repeatedly shows us that God’s delays are not His denials. Often, they are the sign of his deep, loving work in our lives, hidden beneath the surface, preparing us for something greater than we imagined.

Jacob’s favorite son Joseph was sent dreams that prophesied his future greatness. He was favored with intelligence, charm, and administrative capacity. He was honest, diligent and obedient. Yet he was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and unjustly imprisoned. For years, his life seemed to spiral further away from God’s promises. Once, it looked like a break might come. He rightly interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker, and the cupbearer was restored to Pharaoh’s favor. But he forgot to intercede for Joseph’s release. Hope turned into disappointment. Two more years passed in that prison.

From a human perspective, those years seem to be a waste, a cruel delay. Yet God had his great purposes. If released earlier, Joseph might have gone home to resume his life as a shepherd. But he was destined to save his clan, God’s chosen people, from extinction. During the years in Egypt, including his time in prison, Joseph learned the management of a large semi-royal household, the culture of the palace, the who’s who of the court, and how to deal with courtiers. Each step of his journey was a detail in God’s plan to polish his skills and his manners, until he became fit to assume the highest office in Egypt seamlessly. He matured from being a favored boy to a wise, seasoned man. And at the appointed time, not a moment too soon or too late, God exalted him.

God’s delays are often His most precious work. They’re not voids of inactivity. In these furnaces, character is forged, faith is tested, and His perfect plan works out, one quiet moment at a time.

As David cries out, “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?” he expresses the crushing weight of delay. His faith is under pressure. His thoughts trouble him. He fears that his enemies will humiliate him with their triumph at God’s silence. For them, it only means one thing – God’s powerlessness and David’s destruction.

But David’s tortured heart still turns only to God. Feeling abandoned, he cries to the very God who seems to have abandoned him. “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.” He pleads for God to act lest he die. It is a matter of God’s glory and of his own survival. “Lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed over him.’”

Yet God is glorified through our willingness to trust him, through long moments of suffering, not only when he speaks or acts, but even when heaven greets us with silence. And even when everything seems to be mixed up, God is still God.

As in many of David’s psalms, the mood changes at this point to trust. “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.” David reminds himself of God’s unchanging love, the assurance that God will be faithful tomorrow, just as he was yesterday. Today’s silence doesn’t wipe out yesterday’s goodness.

David rejoices because he knows who will deliver him. He sings because he knows who will fight for him.

The Israelites had witnessed the plagues, and God’s deliverance from Egypt with the death of the firstborn of Egypt. But as they waited in front of the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army closing in behind, they panicked and doubted. Yet salvation is eternal, and God’s faithfulness never ceases. He parted the waters, made a way, and showed them that even in their doubt, He is a God who delivers.

When we ask in desperation, “How long, O Lord?” David knows the answer. God has not forgotten us. He sees our distress and hears our cry. He is at work, even in the silence. The hidden seed is growing and the sprout will soon appear. The song will rise again.

Romans 8:32 reminds us, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” God didn’t withhold His Son for our salvation. Will he not help us with all our needs and deliver us from evil?
The cross is the ultimate proof that God is for us—even when it seems He is silent.

While we wait for God to break his silence, let us do exactly what David did. When God delays, we don’t stop talking to Him. Honest prayer is not only allowed but essential in seasons of waiting. Let us pour out our hearts to him, let us keep trusting him and singing our confidence in his promises, even in the dark.

Even when the enemy threatens to flatten and humiliate us, let us sing. God is at work, after all, and he is never late, neither does he fail. At the right time, He will make everything beautiful in its season. God’s delays are never wasted time. So let us trust him. He has dealt bountifully with us, and he will again.