Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 273 · September 30
Within My House
“I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.”
Psalm 101 is a list of promises a man made about his own house. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. Every clause is a door he intends to keep shut.
Then, halfway through the vow, a line from another kind of sentence altogether. O when wilt thou come unto me? He is describing the household he means to run and he stops to ask when God is arriving.
David supplies the warning himself, in the books that follow. His house is where his life came apart: the son who raped his sister, the son who took the throne, the ruined years after. He kept this psalm in his songbook longer than he kept it under his roof. A house is not made safe by the quality of the promise made about it. The most realistic line here is the one that interrupts.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 273 is Fully Persuaded (Romans 4:20-21).