Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 120 · April 30
Crowning the Year
“Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.”
The barley is in. The trailer has made its last trip up the lane, and the field behind the gate is stubble. The farmer at the gate is doing sums in his head about the price, the diesel and next year.
"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness." That is a farming line first, and fatness means richness. Around it are lines like these: "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it," and "Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers." Ridges and furrows are the shape of a ploughed field. And the crown goes on at the end of the year, where the harvest is.
If you read from verse one, the psalm turns out to be weightier than a harvest song. It begins at the altar: "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away." Then, before any rain falls, it says what answered prayer can look like, in awe-inspiring deeds: "By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation." The hand that softens the ground in verse ten is the same hand that answers in verse five and takes sin away in verse three.
The psalm never goes back to the man at the gate. It ends with the fields and valleys shouting for joy: "The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." Whatever the figures say tonight, this year was crowned with God's goodness. The God who forgives your sin is the same God who sends the rain, and you can trust Him with next year.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 120 is Anchor of the Soul (Hebrews 6:19-20).