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 king 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 line is a door he plans to keep shut.
Yet in the middle of the second verse comes a line of a completely different kind, a question in the Hebrew: "O when wilt thou come unto me?" While he is describing the household he means to run, he stops to ask when God will come.
The psalm is David's, and the books that tell his story show what became of his house. His son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, and another son, Absalom, tried to take the throne from his father. David wrote these promises well, and he could not keep them under his own roof. A house is not made safe by how good its promises are. That is why the most honest line here is the question in the middle. Another psalm says it plainly: "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it." So keep asking David's question, because the God you invite in is the One who can keep your house.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 273 is Fully Persuaded (Romans 4:20-21).