BY KLAUS DÖRING
HOW MUCH longer will You forget me, Lord?
During many times of darkness when I thought again that the whole world is against me, I opened my Bible. Suddenly I found Psalm 13, also entitled a Prayer for Help: “How much longer will You forget me, Lord?”
I was born on a Sunday in 1953 – a so called “Sunday Child”. There are sayings that those kind of people will have a life of great success without problems, worries and trials. This is – excuse me – nonsense!
I also experience difficult, problematic and questionable times, where I was really losing all my strength to get down to work on those problems. Life’s path becomes narrow. Fears grow: it’s enough, it’s enough!
I still feel, how I started becoming awkward and jerky. I struggled against everybody around me. I was reluctant against the good ideas of others. I felt driven into a corner.
I started to hurt and insult people in my surroundings with arrogance and unqualified comments. Everything became and become a problem and my voice bellows and my groans grow louder.
But admittedly groans lighten our burden. For even a short moment only, I do feel how my inner life and inside pressure ease off. But sometimes, more trials and problems overwhelm our families and ourselves: illness, death-threats, bankruptcy, war at the working-place, efforts to give us a bad name, intrigues.
“How much longer will You forget me, Lord?”
We stop groaning. We shout already to God, especially if nobody in our surroundings likes to listen to us anymore. If we are deep in fix, God must have forgotten us already, right? A terrible situation! We see faces of those people, who show us hostility.
But I also experienced how God put me into life’s “re-conversion plant” and freshened me up: Little but meaningful and important cares suddenly happened. After a hot day and a refreshing thunderstorm, let’s enjoy the following night; the person who insulted us suddenly apologized; the illness wiped out.
“You prepare a banquet for me, where all my enemies can see me!” (Psalm 23:5). I am glad, because I really don’t know about more and new spitefulness through my next “enemy on duty” in future. I actually really don’t want to know it. I learned that negativism blocks life and its plans.
But I know Psalm 23. I read it every time having a problem. Psalm 23 should be printed in everyone’s heart, mind and soul!
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Email: doringklaus@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter or visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com./PN
