Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 171 · June 20
When I Fall
“Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.”
The harvest is over and a man is walking the rows anyway, looking for something anybody missed. There is no cluster to eat. That is where Micah begins: Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage.
He is describing a country. The good man is perished out of the earth. The prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide. A man’s enemies are the men of his own house. Read it slowly, because it is meant to be read slowly, and it does not lift on the next page.
Out of that comes the verse. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. It is spoken from the floor to somebody standing over her. Nothing about it is cheerful.
And the line after it is the one that gets cut when this is printed on a card. I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause. She is not protesting her innocence. She knows why she is down there, she says the fall is deserved, and she still says the rising will come. The word until carries no date on it. She sits in the dark for as long as the dark lasts.
Sit with the two halves for a while without joining them up, and say nothing. When I fall, I shall arise. Because I have sinned against him.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 171 is Wait on the Lord (Psalm 27:14).