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 waiting on the other side of them. The week did not break you; it wore a groove in you, and you have been walking that groove since spring.
Restoreth is the word, and in Hebrew it is the ordinary verb for turning back or bringing back. Shuv. It is the word used when an exile comes home, when a borrowed thing is returned to its owner, when a person repents and turns around. It is not a topping-up word. It assumes something left and is being brought back to where it belongs. So the psalm is not describing a shepherd who improves a sheep's morale. It is describing one who goes and gets an animal that has wandered off and is standing somewhere it should not be, weak and unable to find its own way in.
The second half only looks like a separate thought. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. The restoring and the leading are one movement: brought back, then walked in the right tracks. And the reason attached is not your usefulness, your promise, or how much is riding on you. It is his name. Your recovery has his reputation on it, which is precisely why he does not leave it at ninety per cent.
So may the one who goes after wandered things come and get you. May the groove you have been walking turn out to be a track he knows and can walk you out of. May you be brought back rather than propped up, and may you find, when you are, that it was never your name at stake.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 101 is Will God Indeed Dwell (1 Kings 8:27).