Daily Manna · Day 156 · June 5
Father
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.”
A father crouches down to eye level with a child who has just broken something expensive, and does not raise his voice. That is the whole scene. Hold it there for a second.
Now let the psalm do what it was written to do. Psalm 103 is praise before it is comfort, and it does not begin with anybody's need. It begins with a man giving orders to his own soul: Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Then it counts. Forgiveth all thine iniquities. Healeth all thy diseases. Redeemeth thy life from destruction. Crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies. Your verse is one item in a long inventory of what God is like, not a technique for feeling better about yourself.
It also has a boundary that most readings step over. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. Fear here is not fright, it is taking him seriously as God, and reverence and warmth turn out to be the same relationship seen from two sides. Then the psalm explains the pity in the next verse instead of leaving it vague and warm: for he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. That is not sentiment. That is a maker's knowledge of the material.
If you were not given a good father, the picture may land sideways, and the psalm is not asking you to reason upward from your father to God. It runs the comparison the other way.
So, a blessing over you, out of the psalm's own vocabulary. May the LORD who knows your frame be gentle with you today, remembering the dust he made you from. May he crown this unremarkable week with lovingkindness and tender mercies. And may every child under your roof learn what a father is from the one described here.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 156 is Buried With Him (Romans 6:4).