Daily Manna · Day 307 · November 3
A Special People
“For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”
What do you think you were picked for?
Because this verse is quoted constantly and the next two verses almost never are, and they exist precisely to stop the reading everybody defaults to. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people. Moses says it flatly and then says it again from the other side: but because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers. The reason for the choosing is the choosing. There is nothing underneath it to appeal to.
So notice what this verse does not say. It does not say chosen because you were promising. It does not say holy meaning morally superior; holy means set apart for a use, and the whole book is about a people who were set apart while behaving badly. It does not say chosen instead of everyone else, either, whatever above all people sounds like in English, because the promise to their fathers that Moses is pointing back to was that in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. And the word behind special people is the word for a king's private treasure, the thing kept back out of the storehouse because he wants it, not because it is useful to him.
Which means the audition you are running is for a place you already hold.
May you stop auditioning for a part that was given to you before you could read. May what a king keeps back out of the storehouse because he wants it, and not because it is useful to him, be what you understand yourself to be. And may the love with nothing underneath it but itself turn out to be the thing you are least able to argue your way out of today.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 307 is After the Fire (1 Kings 19:12).