Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 139 · May 19
Turn Us Again
“Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”
"Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved."
This refrain appears three times in Psalm 80, and each time it grows. In verse three it is "O God." In verse seven it is "O God of hosts." In verse nineteen, the last line of the psalm, it is "O LORD God of hosts." The request stays almost the same each time. What grows longer is the name of the One being asked. That is what happens when someone keeps praying the same prayer and refuses to give up: they come to know more fully whom they are talking to.
Between the repeats, the psalm tells God honestly how things are. "Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure." "Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves." Then comes a long lament about a vine: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it." Now its hedges are broken down, and "It is burned with fire, it is cut down." So the people ask the One who planted the vine to come back and look at it: "Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine."
So pray it the way it was written, three times, and say the third one more slowly than the first two. "Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved." "Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved." "Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved." Lord God of hosts, we have come to Your full name, and we mean it. Turn us back to You and let Your face shine on us. Every time this psalm prays, it ends on the same sure words, "we shall be saved," and we rest on them with it. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 139 is The Measure You Use (Luke 6:38).