When I Fall

The harvest is over, and a man walks the rows anyway, looking for anything the pickers missed. That is how Micah's lament begins: "Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat."

He is describing his country. "The good man is perished out of the earth." "The prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward," meaning the leaders want bribes. "Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide." Even home is no safer: "a man’s enemies are the men of his own house." Read those lines slowly. Then the prophet turns to the only place left to look: "Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me."

Out of that comes today's 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." Micah now speaks for the whole nation, as if it were one person sitting on the ground with an enemy standing over it. It is not a cheerful verse.

The next line is the one that gets left off when this verse is printed on a card: "I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause." The speaker does not claim to be innocent. The fall was deserved, and still the rising will come. The word until carries no date, so the waiting lasts as long as the dark lasts.

Sit with both halves for a while, and do not hurry to join them: "when I fall, I shall arise," and "because I have sinned against him." Then read how that same verse ends, because God Himself joins them: "he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness." The One whose anger you are bearing is the same One who will plead your cause and bring you out.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 171 is Wait on the Lord (Psalm 27:14).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two