Daily Manna · Day 27 · January 27
Simple Faith
“The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.”
"The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me."
The man who wrote that had nearly died. He describes it three verses earlier: "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me." Whatever it was, he thought it was the end. And what he did about it was nothing clever at all: "Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul." That was his whole prayer, one short cry.
He is worth getting to know as a person. He offers no system and defends no position. He simply reports what happened: he was brought low, and God helped him. Further down the psalm you find out what a man like that does afterwards. He asks, "What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?" And he answers by taking "the cup of salvation" and paying his vows "in the presence of all his people." He was rescued in private, and he said so in public. That is all the system he has.
The Hebrew word behind "simple" means open, unguarded, easily persuaded. In the Old Testament it is usually no compliment. Here it describes a man with no defences left, and that turns out to be exactly the kind of person God preserves.
So ask yourself how much of what you call your faith is a position you would be embarrassed to lose, and how much of it is "I was brought low, and he helped me." The second kind is the faith God keeps. You do not have to be clever to be held by Him. When you are brought low, call on Him the way this man did.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 27 is No Greater Joy (3 John 1:4).