“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” (Psalm 13:5-6).

The verse above isn’t how David begins this psalm.

Read through Psalm 13. The tone and feel of the other four verses are not uplifting and confident. Far from it. David asks—bluntly—how long the Lord will forget him and hide his face—letting David wrestle with his thoughts and experience sorrow in his heart day after day. How long will the Lord allow David’s enemy to triumph over him?

How long, Lord?

That can be an all-too-familiar question for us as well, can’t it?

How long, Lord, will these struggles in my life endure? How long will these feelings of guilt and shame blindside me at random moments—for things that I did years ago and deeply regret? How long, Lord, will it feel like you’re hiding your face, your presence, your love, from me?

How long, Lord?

David boldly asks for an answer from the Lord his God, knowing that without God, David has nothing—no light, no life, nothing—and his foes will most certainly overcome him, rejoicing when he falls.

That’s when the psalm’s tone shifts dramatically.

It changes as David remembers who God is: the LORD. Full of compassion and grace and unfailing love. Salvation—the rescue from all our foes—comes from him and him alone.

What God has done for us turns our despair into rejoicing because his amazing answer to all of our questions, all of our fears and doubts and worries and anxieties, is Jesus.

In the pages of Scripture, we see Jesus’ unfailing love for us and the salvation he won for us. He triumphed over all our foes. Sin. Death. The devil. Jesus does not hide his face from us; he has not forgotten us. He doesn’t leave us to wrestle with our thoughts or struggle with sorrow day after day all alone.

No, he speaks words of comfort to us through his Word and sacraments and through his people—sinful people to whom he has also shown unfailing love and salvation.

Therefore, despite—or perhaps in spite and defiance of—our troubles and struggles in this sin-darkened world, we have daily opportunities to sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to us.

That wasn’t how David began this psalm, but it is how he ended it: by focusing on the goodness of the Lord and making the conscious desire and decision to sing praises to him.

Dear Christian, by God’s grace alone, may that be us, too.

Even if a day, a season, or life itself is filled with trouble and sorrow and woe, may we always see God’s goodness to us in and because of what Jesus has done for us. May we always say, “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” (Psalm 13:5-6).

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