Daily Manna · Day 338 · December 4
Pleasure in the Fearful
“The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.”
Many of us are trying to be worth keeping, and we usually do it by taking on more. We take on more responsibility, produce more work, and start a reading plan we soon fall behind on. We polish the version of ourselves that other believers can see.
The people who first sang this psalm were in no position to try that. You can tell from the psalm itself when it was written: "The LORD doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel," and later, "he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates." This sounds like the community that came back from exile in Babylon. They were rebuilding a wrecked city with their own hands. They had no army, no cavalry and no standing among the nations. They were a small people inside a wall they were putting up themselves, with nothing impressive to offer anybody.
The verse just before today's is aimed straight at people like that: "He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man." The horse stood for military power, the very thing they did not have. The legs of a man stand for the runner, human ability at its fastest. God takes no pleasure in either one. To a people with no horses, that was not a scolding. It was a relief.
That leaves what the psalm does say God enjoys: "The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy." Both halves have to be there. Reverence without hope turns sour and becomes dread, and a person like that is tiring to live with. Hope without reverence grows careless and stops taking God seriously. Held together, they are a way of standing before Him, and the psalm says He delights in it.
So set down one thing this week on purpose, something you took on only to prove you were worth keeping. Then tell God plainly that you are counting on His mercy and have nothing else in your hands. That is exactly the kind of person the psalm says He takes pleasure in.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 338 is He Wist Not (Judges 16:20).