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We are excited to be starting a new series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below. Read Psalm 13  Listen to Psalm 13 How long, Lord? Psalm 13 is a lament, a desperate expression of grief, often born out of regret or mourning. Nearly half of the Psalms are laments, although it is not a common expression used in worship in the church. But perhaps it should be, particularly when we are faced with the current situation. How long will COVID-19 be here? How long before there is a vaccine? How long before the supermarkets will be fully stocked? How long before we can leave our homes, go back to work, go to school? How long before life goes back to normal? The psalmist's desperation comes from being close to death, perhaps because of serious illness (verse 3). Four times he cries "How long?" He, like Job (Job 13:24), feels forgotten by God (verse 1), which adds to his anguish. In the middle of a crisis we do not know how long it will go on. Yet in his desperation the psalmist calls for God to look at him - so that God would no longer hide His face, and answer him - to answer the fourfold "How long?" What we might call "body and soul" was in Hebrew thought: the physical body, the mind (heart) and the emotions (soul). They did not function independently but were interrelated. The cry for deliverance by the psalmist is because what was happening to his physical body was causing torment to his inner life. The psalmist has a change of attitude in verse 5, not because there is a change in his physical well-being but because he remembers that God has been good to him in the past and so he trusts God in anticipation of his future deliverance. How long, Lord?