Daily Manna · Day 101 · April 11
Soul Restoration
“He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”
You slept eight hours, and the tiredness was still waiting for you when you woke. The week did not break you, but it wore a groove in you, like a path worn into a lawn, and you have been walking in that groove since spring.
The key word in this verse is "restoreth." In Hebrew it is shuv, the ordinary verb for turning back or bringing back. It is used when someone who was sent away comes home, when a borrowed thing is given back to its owner, and when a person repents and turns around. So it does not mean topping something up. It assumes that something has wandered off and is being brought back to where it belongs. That is why the picture behind this line is a shepherd who does more than cheer up a tired sheep. He goes out and brings back one that has wandered, one that is standing where it should not be, weak and unable to find its own way home.
The second half of the verse only looks like a separate thought: "he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake." Restoring and leading belong together. First the Shepherd brings you back, and then He walks you along the right paths. The reason He gives has nothing to do with how useful you are, how promising, or how much depends on you. He does it "for his name’s sake." His own good name is tied to your recovery, and that is why He does not stop halfway.
So may the Shepherd who goes after wandering things come and get you. May the groove you have been walking turn out to be a path He knows, and may He lead you out of it. May you be brought all the way back, and not just propped up. And when you are, may you find that the name at stake was always His, and that His name has never once failed.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 101 is Will God Indeed Dwell (1 Kings 8:27).