Sung in a Cave

My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

That was written underground. The psalm carries a heading putting it in the days David fled from Saul, in the cave, and 1 Samuel 24 supplies the scene: three thousand chosen men combing the rocks of the wild goats, and Saul walking into the very cave where David and his men are pressed against the sides in the dark. Read the rest of the psalm and nothing in it is settled. My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire. They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down.

Fixed is a word for something set in place and made ready. Bibles print steadfast, and the same root turns up for a throne established or a house founded. He claims to be bolted down while everything he can see is in motion, and he says it twice in one breath, which is what people do with a claim they intend to hold to.

Then the line most readers skip, because it sounds like scenery. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. He is making an arrangement for the morning. The instrument gets named and so does the hour. A man in a cave, with an army on the hillside, is settling what the first thing tomorrow will be.

Do the same tonight, before you know how tomorrow will feel. Settle one small thing about your first ten minutes and put it physically in your way: the Bible open on the table, the alarm moved across the room. A fixed heart, in Psalm 57, is a heart that sets an alarm.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 92 is Called by Name (Isaiah 43:1).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two