Daily Manna · Day 199 · July 18
Rejoice and Shout for Joy
“But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy.”
When life is going badly, what would you need to believe for your joy to be honest? This psalm answers that.
The psalm does not hand the shouting to everybody. It gives it to a named group: "all those that put their trust in thee." Trust is what lets you in, whatever your mood or your week. Look at where the verse sits. The psalm opens with David asking God to "consider my meditation," his quiet groaning, as if the words were hard to get out. The men around him are deceitful, and "their throat is an open sepulchre," an open grave. The joy is commanded right in the middle of all that, before anything is fixed. Then the verse explains the noise: "let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee." Their joy rests in God Himself, and the reason it can hold comes in the same breath: "because thou defendest them."
So do it in that order: trust first, then joy. Put one situation into His hands this morning, in a single sentence. Then sing something on the way in, even badly. Let the joy follow your decision to trust, before the evidence arrives. He is the One who defends you, and that is reason enough to be glad.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 199 is Moved With Compassion (Matthew 9:36).