Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.
Psalm 143:8 (NIV)
A Word in the Morning
They parked at the trailhead a little after two and took the loop counterclockwise, four and a half miles by the sign. Snow crust over old tracks, the sort that holds for three steps and then lets a boot through to the knee. He carried the water because her hands got cold around the bottle. Every few hundred yards a blue blaze on a trunk, painted at eye level by someone who knew which way people would be facing.
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Show me the way I should go sounds like directions.
The man praying it has his spirit growing faint within him and his heart within him dismayed. He spreads out his hands. He thirsts for God the way a parched land thirsts. He asks God to answer quickly because his spirit is failing, and he asks him not to hide his face, and he names what he’s afraid of becoming, one of those who go down to the pit. He asks to be taught to do God’s will and to be led on level ground by God’s good Spirit.
Out on the loop it hardly matters which way they went. The trail comes back to the car either way. They watch the light, which leaves the low ground by four, and the cold that starts coming up through the boots as soon as they stop moving. Twice they stand still and listen for the road and can’t hear it.
So the asking is for two things, a word of unfailing love and a road to walk, and it comes from a man who has already entrusted his life to the God he’s asking. He’s sure enough of who he’s asking to name an hour for the answer.
The first of the two is the stranger request and the psalm never says what the word would be. It isn’t information. He is asking to be told something about God’s love toward him, in the morning, before anything else has spoken to him — and the asking assumes somebody is willing to say it and knew he would need it. Blue paint at eye level, put there by a person who worked out in advance which way you would be facing.
He wants to hear it early, before the day has told him anything.
A Prayer to Remember
I said I trusted you yesterday, God, and by dark I wasn’t sure I’d meant it. I’m not asking for the whole year of it. Speak to me early, before the phone does. One sentence would get me to lunch.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
