Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 109 · April 19
Brought From Lodebar
“And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?”
David's men bring a man into the king's house, and as soon as he comes before David he falls on his face. He has been fetched from the house where he was living, a long way off, to face a king he has every reason to fear.
His name is Mephibosheth. He was five years old when the news came from Jezreel that Saul and Jonathan were dead. "His nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame." That one fall, in a frightened woman's arms, left him with ruined feet for the rest of his life. He is also Saul's grandson, and the family of an old king had every reason to fear the new one.
So he had been living at Lodebar, across the Jordan, in another man's house and out of the way.
Back in Jerusalem, David had asked a question: "Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" Jonathan had been David's closest friend. Now David speaks first: "Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually."
Mephibosheth answers like a man who cannot believe what he has heard. "And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?" A dead dog was a way of describing someone of no account at all. David had once used the same words about himself, calling across to Saul: "after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea." Mephibosheth is not fishing for comfort. He is telling the king that he knows exactly where he stands.
David does not argue with him or give him a speech about his worth. He turns to Ziba, Saul's old servant, and gives orders about land and servants and harvests. One thing keeps coming back in the chapter, and that is the table, which is mentioned four times. The story says that Mephibosheth "shall eat at my table, as one of the king's sons." The chapter ends by putting two facts side by side: "he did eat continually at the king's table; and was lame on both his feet." The kindness did not wait for his feet to be healed.
God has done the same for us. He welcomes us to His table for Jesus' sake, long before we are whole, and He keeps us there. So this month, set a place for somebody who cannot invite you back. Do not wait to fix them first, and do not make the meal depend on whether they think better of themselves.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 109 is Power to the Faint (Isaiah 40:29).