What Should I Do If I Don't Feel My Prayers Are Being Heard?"

Psalm 13

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 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?

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

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

I don't know about you, but I can be a very impatient person. When I am in hurry to get somewhere, and someone driving is taking their sweet time, I want to race around them and stare at them.  Or, if I am waiting at the drive thru and someone is changing their order for the 4th time, I want to scream. By nature as human beings we are impatient.  We want what we want, when we want it.  It is actually at the heart of our sinful nature to be like this. 

I don't know if you have noticed in the first 13 psalms, but we have often seen the words, "How long Lord?"  We will see those words a lot more in the rest of the psalms as well.  While we are impatient in our daily lives with menial things, we can also be impatient when waiting on God in bigger matters.  This is especially true when we are suffering, and not seeing our prayers answered.  David says, "Day after day I have sorrow in my heart!"  

Despite this longing for God to end his suffering, David ends the psalm by saying, "But I will trust in your unfailing love."  It is easy to trust God when things are going well, but our faith is forged when God seems absent.  Notice David is willfully trusting in God. He is not letting his impatience get the best of him.  He still trusts that God has his best interest in mind.  

Finally, he says, "My heart rejoices in God's salvation".  David has seen God deliver him before, and this is the basis for him being able to "rejoice".  His joy is not based on his circumstances but knowing God will deliver him in time.  For the Christian our trust is in Jesus Christ, who is our deliverance.  We can rejoice even in our trials, because we know Jesus has already delivered us. 

Where is your relationship with God being tested?  Where do you feel that God has maybe forgotten you?  Will you, like David, trust in God's unfailing love?  Will you remember all the good things God has done for you, and praise God inspite of what you are going through?  God loves you and he will never leave or forsake you!!!