Daily Manna · Day 223 · August 11
Shield and Lifter
“But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.”
What does shame do to a body? It bends the neck. You walk into the building with your eyes on the floor. Humility has nothing to do with it. It is the thing people know, and the way the conversation changes when you come through the door.
There is a kind of shame that is harder to carry than being wrongly accused. It is the kind where the thing is true, and known, and yours. Time has not made it any less true. A person can be truly forgiven for it and still walk into a room with eyes down. Forgiveness settles the account, but on its own it does not lift a head.
Psalm 3 comes from a place a lot like that. Its heading tells us David wrote it when he fled from his own son Absalom. Many people in the land were saying out loud that God was finished with him, and David quotes them in the verse just before today's: "Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God." He does not argue the point or offer evidence against it. He says three things to God instead. First, "thou, O LORD, art a shield for me." Second, God is "my glory," the exact opposite of what people were saying about him. Third, God is "the lifter up of mine head." That last one is the tender one, and the mercy is in the words themselves. David is not told to straighten up. God does the lifting.
So look one person in the eye today. The one you have been avoiding in the hallway will do. You are not defending your reputation in that moment. You are letting God hold your head up, the way He held up David's.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 223 is The Race and the Crown (1 Corinthians 9:24).