Daily Manna · Day 157 · June 6
Never Forsaken
“For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the LORD to make you his people.”
Picture ripe wheat standing in a field, with thunder rolling over it. In Israel, rain almost never falls at wheat harvest. The whole chapter hangs on that picture.
Samuel is old and stepping down as Israel's leader. The nation has just demanded a king, and he tells them plainly that this was a great wickedness, because "the LORD your God was your king." As a sign, he calls on God to send "thunder and rain" in the wheat harvest, and it comes. The people are terrified, and they beg Samuel to pray for them, "that we die not." It is not a gentle scene. Then, standing in that weather, Samuel says the sentence in front of you: "For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the LORD to make you his people."
Notice where he grounds their safety. He does not ground it in how they behave, since the storm is a comment on how they behave. He grounds it in God's name and God's pleasure. God has tied His own reputation to this people, and He will never become the kind of God who walks away from what He was pleased to make.
Stay out in the rain a moment longer, because Samuel is not finished. Three verses later he says, "But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king." It is the same man, the same speech and the same weather. Being safe in God's character never became permission to keep on sinning. The storm was over the wheat for a reason.
So let the rain do what it was sent to do. Think of the habit that most clearly goes against belonging to God, the one you assumed He stopped noticing years ago. Take one real step against it today, the kind somebody else could check: the account closed, the number blocked, or a friend told exactly what to ask you about on Friday. You can take that step without terror, because the God who sent the storm is the same God who promised He would not forsake His people.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 157 is Beginning of Wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).