Renewed Like the Eagle

The eagle in that verse comes with a history. Ancient readers had a story, repeated for centuries, that an old eagle renews itself: that its plumage falls and grows back, and in some tellings that it flies at the sun and plunges into water and comes up young. Some of it is legend and some is only what a moult looks like from the ground. The psalm is not making a claim about birds. It is borrowing a picture everyone in the room already had.

And the psalm's own order matters more than the eagle does. The man has told his soul to forget not all his benefits, and then he counts them in sequence: forgiveth, healeth, redeemeth, crowneth, and then satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed. Renewal is downstream of being fed. It is not a second wind you generate on a bad morning; it is what happens to somebody God has satisfied.

So pray it back instead of reading it, and keep his order.

Lord, you forgive all my iniquities, and I am not going to raise that one again tonight. You heal my diseases, and you know which ones I have stopped mentioning to anybody. You redeem my life from destruction, which I would rather not be reminded I needed. You crown me with lovingkindness and tender mercies, which is a strange pair of words for a week like this one. And you satisfy my mouth with good things. Fill it. I have been running on nothing and calling it discipline.

Then take a question with you rather than a task. You are tired. What have you actually been feeding on, and when did you last let him do the satisfying instead of the topping up?

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 204 is What She Could (Mark 14:8).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna