Daily Manna · Day 26 · January 26
Your Keeper
“The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.”
It is easy to say the Lord is your keeper if you have never been the one who has to stay awake.
Picture a woman singing this song as she walks up to Jerusalem for a feast with a group of travellers. They are passing through hill country, where the passes are known for robbers and the sun can kill. She lifts her eyes to the hills, and the hills are no comfort, because that is where the danger is. Then someone in the group sings back an answer to her: "he that keepeth thee will not slumber." And again: "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."
Keeping is what this psalm is about. In Hebrew the same verb appears six times in eight verses, and the KJV translates it "keep" and "preserve." By verse 5 that keeping has come down to one place: "The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand." He is right beside you at your right hand, the side of your working hand, which you cannot guard while that hand is busy. In that country, shade was how you stayed alive. And the psalm never claims the road is safe. It claims that Someone is standing between you and what the road can do.
So here is the promise. It is narrower than a guarantee of an easy trip, and it is better. Someone is awake on the side you cannot watch. He never needs anyone to take over the night shift, and He has never once handed the watch to you.
Keeper of Israel, I have been standing guard on a side I cannot see. I am not good at it, and I have not slept properly in a while. Take the hour when I am least on guard. I am handing it to You by name before I reach it. And then I am going to sleep, which is the part I keep refusing to do. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 26 is He Humbled Thee (Deuteronomy 8:3).