Daily Manna · Day 108 · April 18
Trust without Fear
“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.”
A rope with two people on it, on a slope, in bad weather.
There are two readers of this verse, and it does different work in each. The first has been afraid for so long that fear has stopped announcing itself; it arrives while she is brushing her teeth and has three versions of next month drafted before she notices it is there. The second is not afraid at all and has not been for years, and would tell you that is faith, and it is closer to not having needed anything recently.
Isaiah is writing for the first. Look at where the song sits. Chapter 12 comes after eleven chapters of warning: Assyria, invasion, a land emptied, a remnant. It is not a song sung before the hard thing, and the man singing it is not somebody who dodged it. Verse 1 says so without flinching: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. This is a song from the far side.
And the verb in verse 2 is a decision, not a report. I will trust, and not be afraid. He does not claim I am not afraid. He says he will trust, which is what a person does with fear still standing in the room and every reason for it intact. For the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song. He is on the rope, and the rope is not what he is trusting; the other end is.
Lord, we are not the same. Some of us have been afraid so long we have stopped naming it, and some of us have simply not needed you lately and have mistaken that for strength. Make the second group honest and the first group brave, and do not let either of us confuse a quiet week with faith. We will trust. We will still be afraid while we do it. Both of those are in the verse. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 108 is At Thy Word (Luke 5:5).