The Phil Files

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?

  Look on me and answer, LORD my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
  and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

  But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
  I will sing the LORD’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

\o/ — Comments Psalm 13: I trust in Your unfailing love! — \o/

The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26). Those were the apostle Paul’s words and they resonate in my heart today as I read this Psalm.

You see, today my heart is on a dear friend wrestling with terminal cancer. I say this Psalm for this friend. I cry out to God for a miracle. I pray for deliverance. Whether the psalmist’s original intentions were to speak of physical, military, or political enemies, my heart is drawn to our last, powerful, vicious enemy — death. I don’t want death to triumph in this case … not now … not with my friend.

I know there are times when death is welcome — when death is the doorway to God’s presence and God’s peace and escape from suffering and sickness. But, in a world of decay and mortality, where each of us is held by a fragile thread to life and family and friends, death is still an enemy. The Holy Spirit declares that Jesus came to liberate us from our fear of death’s tyrannical rule (Hebrews 2:14). So today, dear God, I pray this Psalm and ask for your deliverance of my friend.

Yet, dear God, I do trust in your unfailing love and I know the salvation that you have already lavished down on my friend. I know, dear Abba, that you have done so many great things for me and those that I love. I trust in Your goodness and Your care. I rest my heart in the assurance that Your deliverance will come — whether from death to good health or through death into Your presence (Philippians 1:19-23).

So as I listen to the birds of morning sing their songs, my heart wells up with joy and a song stirs in my heart, too. I praise you, O LORD, for You are good … You are my God … and Your goodness overflows and blesses me.

Keep me safe, my God,
    for in you I take refuge.

  I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
    apart from you I have no good thing.”
  I say of the godly who are in the land,
    “They are the noble people
    in whom is all my delight.”
  Those who run after other gods
    will suffer more and more.
  I will not pour out their libations of blood
    or take up their names on my lips.

  LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
    you have made my lot secure.
  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.

  I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
  I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

  Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
  because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful 2 one see decay.
  You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

\o/ — Comments Psalm 16: Apart from You I have no good thing — \o/

Simple, sweet, and succinct.

The LORD is my safety and refuge.
The LORD is my source of every good thing.
The LORD has caused my life to be lived in the place of blessing.
The LORD blesses me with His presence and eternal pleasures at His side.

So, my response is to praise the LORD and to anticipate His glorious future … which by grace includes me!