Daily Manna · Day 37 · February 6
Trouble
“And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
Psalm 50 is a courtroom scene, and the man who wrote it worked in the building.
Asaph was a temple musician, one of the singers David appointed, which means he stood in the place where the sacrifices were made and watched the whole operation daily: the smoke, the crowds, the schedule, the professionalism of it. That is who God gives this psalm to. And the accusation in it is startling, because it is not that the worship had lapsed. God says so directly: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings. The system was running. He then asks what He would do with a bull, given that every beast of the forest is already His, and He tells them that if He were hungry He would not mention it to them. Later in the psalm He turns on people who recite His statutes while hating instruction.
Right in the middle of that, without warning, comes an offer. Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. A man who had spent his life watching people bring God things He did not need writes down the one thing God actually asks for, and it is a phone call from somebody in trouble.
Two months of handling it yourself, a spreadsheet, a plan B, and a low nausea you have decided is normal for a person your age.
Call. Not thinking it over on the drive, not writing about it. Ask, in the plain words of what you need. Then decide now, while it is still unanswered, who you will tell when it comes, because the second half of that verse is not optional and it does not happen by accident.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 37 is That Ye May Know (1 John 5:13).