Daily Manna · Day 269 · September 26
Through the Valley
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
You have a valley you do not announce. The scan result, the marriage nobody knows is failing, the child who will not pick up. You get through the working day and the whole of it is waiting for you in the car park.
Something shifts in this verse that is easy to read past. For three verses God has been he. He maketh me to lie down, he leadeth me, he restoreth my soul. In the valley he becomes thou. Nobody stays formal in the dark. And look at what the psalm does not offer while it is there. Not that the valley is avoided. Not that the shadow was imaginary. Only that the walking is accompanied, that it goes through rather than into, and that the two tools named are a rod and a staff, one for what comes at the sheep and one for steering the sheep, both of them called a comfort.
You are welcome to stop talking about him and start talking to him. Second person, in the ten seconds before you open the door. He is not being briefed on any of this. He is being addressed, and the psalm rather suggests that is what the dark is for.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 269 is Prayed for Thee (Luke 22:32).