The Great Turnaround Text: Psalm 13:5-6
Introduction: The Grammar of Lament
The Psalms are the prayer book of the saints, and they are an honest prayer book. They are not filled with the sort of plastic, sentimental cheerfulness that characterizes so much of modern evangelical worship. Our God is not afraid of our questions, our sorrows, or our complaints. He invites them. He gives us the very language for them in the book of Psalms. And Psalm 13 is a classic example of a Spirit-inspired lament. The first four verses are raw. David asks "How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?" This is a man in the crucible. He feels forgotten, abandoned, and surrounded by his enemies. His soul is in turmoil.
We live in a world where such feelings are common. We face trials, sickness, financial hardship, and the heartbreak of wayward children. We see our culture spiraling into madness and we cry out, "How long?" It is not a sin to feel the weight of the fall. It is not a sin to be honest with God about it. The sin is to stay there. The sin is to let the lament curdle into unbelief. The sin is to murmur in your tent instead of arguing your case before the throne of grace.
And this is why the final two verses of this psalm are so critically important. They represent what we might call the great turnaround. There is a dramatic, sudden shift from complaint to confidence, from desperation to doxology. David has laid out his case, he has poured out his heart, but he does not end there. He pivots. He preaches to his own soul. He reminds himself of what he knows to be true, regardless of what his circumstances or his feelings are screaming at him. This is the essence of faith. Faith is not the absence of questions; it is the refusal to let those questions have the last word. Faith is a rugged, deliberate act of the will, grounded in the character of God. In these last two verses, David shows us how to navigate the dark valleys. He shows us how to move from "How long?" to "I will sing."
The Text
But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to Yahweh,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
(Psalm 13:5-6)
The Deliberate Pivot of Faith (v. 5)
The turnaround begins with a declaration of trust in verse 5.
"But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation." (Psalm 13:5)
Notice the powerful, adversative conjunction: "But." This is the hinge upon which the entire psalm turns. "My enemies are exulting, my soul is in sorrow, I feel forgotten... BUT." This is a conscious, determined choice. David is not waiting for his feelings to change. He is commanding them to change by anchoring his soul to something immovable. And what is that anchor? "Your lovingkindness."
This is the Hebrew word hesed. It is one of the most important words in the Old Testament. It does not mean a vague, sentimental affection. Hesed is covenant loyalty. It is steadfast, unbreakable, sworn allegiance. It is the love that says, "I have made a promise, and I will not break it." When David says he trusts in God's hesed, he is not trusting in a fickle emotion. He is trusting in God's sworn oath. He is remembering his covenant. He is saying, "God has bound Himself to me by a promise, and He is not a liar. Therefore, despite what I see, despite what I feel, I will plant my flag right here on the character of my covenant-keeping God."
And what is the direct result of this trust? "My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation." The joy does not precede the trust; it flows from it. So many Christians seek joy as an end in itself. They try to work up feelings of happiness. But biblical joy is not a feeling we manufacture; it is a fruit that grows on the tree of faith. When you deliberately trust in God's covenant faithfulness, your heart will rejoice in His salvation. It is an inevitable consequence. The word for salvation here is yeshua. It means deliverance, victory, rescue. David is in a tight spot, but by trusting in God's character, he can rejoice in a salvation that he has not yet seen with his eyes. He knows it is coming because he knows the God who promised it.
This is the logic of faith. We do not rejoice because our problems have vanished. We rejoice because our God is faithful. We look away from the waves and we look to the one who walks on them. For us, this is even more profound. We look to the ultimate expression of God's hesed, the ultimate yeshua. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ. God's covenant loyalty was demonstrated once for all when He sent His Son to die for us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8). Our salvation is not a future possibility; it is an accomplished fact. Therefore, our joy is not contingent on our circumstances. It is grounded in the finished work of Christ.
The Doxological Response (v. 6)
The psalm concludes not with a quiet, internal confidence, but with an audible, outward expression of praise.
"I will sing to Yahweh, Because He has dealt bountifully with me." (Psalm 13:6)
The pivot to trust in verse 5 leads directly to the promise of song in verse 6. "I will sing." This is not a suggestion. It is a resolution. This is what we are made for. We were created to give glory to God, and singing is a primary way we do that. Notice that he doesn't say, "I will feel like singing." He says, "I will sing." Worship is a duty. It is an act of obedience. And very often, the feelings follow the obedience. We sing our way into the truth. We sing until our hearts catch up with our mouths. The Psalms are God's inspired songbook, given to us precisely for this purpose: to shape our affections, to train our hearts, to give us a vocabulary for every condition of the soul.
And David gives the reason for his song: "Because He has dealt bountifully with me." This is astounding. Just a few verses earlier, he was asking if God had forgotten him forever. Now, looking back, he reinterprets his entire life through the lens of God's covenant faithfulness. He is not looking at one or two isolated incidents. He is making a summary judgment of God's entire disposition toward him. And the verdict is bounty. Generosity. Abundance.
How can he say this while his enemies are still prowling? Because he is not measuring God's bounty by his current level of comfort. He is measuring it by God's character and God's promises. He knows that even the trials are part of God's bountiful dealings. He knows that God is working all things together for good (Rom. 8:28). He is looking back at past deliverances and projecting them forward into his present trouble. He is saying, "The God who was faithful then will be faithful now."
This is the perspective of a mature faith. A shallow faith only sees God's bounty when the sun is shining and the bank account is full. A rugged, biblical faith can stand in the midst of the storm and declare that God has dealt bountifully with us, because the greatest bounty He could ever give us is Himself. He has given us His Son, He has given us His Spirit, He has given us His Word, and He has given us an eternal inheritance. Compared to that, our present afflictions are light and momentary. They cannot change the verdict. The final word on the life of every believer is this: God has dealt bountifully with me.
Conclusion: From Lament to Anthem
This psalm provides us with a divine roadmap for navigating trouble. It teaches us that it is right to bring our honest laments to God. But it is wrong to stay there. We must make the great turnaround. We must make the deliberate pivot from our circumstances to God's character.
We must say "But." But I have a covenant. But God has sworn an oath. But Jesus died and rose again. We must trust in His hesed, His covenant-keeping love. From that trust, joy in His salvation will spring forth. And that joy must not remain silent. It must become a song. It must become an anthem of praise, declaring to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to the principalities and powers that our God is a God of bounty.
So when you are in the valley, when you are tempted to despair, when your enemies seem to have the upper hand, take up this psalm. Pray the first four verses with all the honesty you can muster. But do not stop there. By a sheer act of faith, you must go on to pray, and then to sing, the last two. Trust in His lovingkindness. Rejoice in His salvation. And sing to the Lord, because in Christ, He has already dealt bountifully with you.