The Home Page Network

Psalm 131
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 My heart is not proud, LORD,
like a weaned child I am content.
3 Israel my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Christians may be entitled to peace but they do become miserable from time to time. The times I am most despondent are those times when I fall into that category of persons who feel it is their job to fix everything that I perceive is wrong. I have images of myself running in circles like a dog chasing my tail and every once in a while actually catching it. Then, I ‘yelp’ as if I am suffering from some outside force and all the while I am biting at myself.

It is an illusion to believe that when it comes to relating to others that we can fix them or circumstances to create a perfect world. We fix nothing. It is the nature of this world that when you push something or someone in one place they bulge out in another. “Cause and effect” influences most of what happens in life and try as we may we cannot see all the consequences of our actions. We need to have enough insight to accept that as a fact.

When we push, a reaction takes place that is invariably larger than what we expected. We are arrogant to think otherwise. That is precisely why the believer needs to develop a trust in Providence to take over and order the pieces on this giant chess board for ultimate, how be it temporary, “solutions” which usually turn out to be nothing more than cutting a course through a sea of dangerous alternatives.

This is especially true when we have to relate to other people. When people are pushed they eventually end up exercising their wills in obvious or secret ways to resist the cure we would prescribe for them. Nothing will reach them but what has reached us and that is what has reached us at the seat of our wills, the heart.

The Psalmist David was very aware of this. Even though he was familiar with the tendency of sheep to be herded when he became a leader of people he learned people are not sheep. As they sheep they need care and direction but unlike sheep people follow only when they get what they want and what they think they need. Too much pondering on why this is so always leads us to the conclusion that the ways of men are “great matters or things too wonderful (overwhelming)” for us.

David discovered the eventual solution for this ague of the soul was simply learning how to quiet himself as a child weaned from its mother. Such a child no longer has to cry to get the comfort of care. A “weaned child” has only to ask and trust. The formula is a simple powerful one: speak truth and life; act on truth and life; trust in the truth and life which we have embraced as the Way of God. Sow your seed of good will, love and labors and trust God for the growth.