How Long Is Still a Prayer: The Witness Our Neighbors Can See

How Long Is Still a Prayer: The Witness Our Neighbors Can See Preview · Opening of the manuscript The banner already knows how to say outreach. We are a sending church. We are a light in this town.

Somebody printed it on vinyl that looks like courage from the parking lot. Tuesday still sends each household home with a closed journal and a private how-long the street never has to hear. Psalm 13 will not help you keep that arrangement.

A neighbor two stoops down already received the public version of this church. The public version can say we pray. The public version can leave a casserole. The public version still treats a named cry as indoor furniture nobody on the sidewalk is allowed to keep. If you preach Psalm 13 as a map of anyone's private despair, you will lie. If you preach it as a poster for a missions quarter that never lets a how-long occupy air the block can still hear, you will lie in a different direction. Preach it as lament poetry that brings despair into Yahweh's presence, and you give this church a God who can be addressed in the wait.

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Hear Psalm 13, from the World English Bible: "How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me? Behold, and answer me, Yahweh, my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death; lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him;” lest my adversaries rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to Yahweh, because he has been good to me." (Psalm 13:1-6, WEB) This is lament poetry. It is not a diagram of your unfinished grief. It is not a poster for a missions quarter that never occupies a cry where a neighbor can still hear it. Application comes after that fact, from the God who can be cried to in the wait.