Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 31 · January 31
Afar Off
“Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?”
A woman is standing on the steps outside a building, in the cold, having watched a man walk out with nothing against his name. She knows what he did. Three other people know what he did. It took two years to get to this morning, and this morning is over.
Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
There is no preface. No throat-clearing, no acknowledgement that God is good really, no assurance that the psalmist knows better. And it uses the word standest, which is the worst part. Somebody standing is not absent. He is present at a distance and not intervening.
The psalm then spends nine verses describing the man on the steps. He boasteth of his heart's desire. He lurks. And it quotes what he tells himself: He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.
Sit with how close that is to the opening question. The wicked man's confidence and the believer's complaint are looking at the same evidence and describing it the same way. The psalm does not scold the man who prayed the first line. It puts his sentence at the top and leaves it there.
Lord, you are standing afar off, and I am not going to pretend otherwise this morning. He walked out. She is on the steps. You saw all of it, nothing has been done about it, and I have no way of making those two facts sit together. Forget not the humble. I have nowhere else to bring this.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 31 is Not One Failed (Joshua 21:45).