Psalm 131
In our life with God in this world, we often need to sit quietly and be honest with ourselves. What worries and anxieties are occupying our minds and governing our behavior more than they should? Sitting quietly is difficult.
We don’t like what happens when we do. All the ghosts and goblins from below, which we have so effectively silenced in the hurry of each day, suddenly come to the surface. When we are still, we often scroll. We scroll through algorithms available to us for the silencing of the inner panic. But when we resist the scrolling, we are often left with lingering pains, insecurities, and thoughts that worry us and, more than we realize, control us.
While we may be effective at managing our interior lives, our management never leads to healing. At best we can numb our pain with our distractions, but the Book of Psalms offers a different path. In the presence of the Lord, we acknowledge these pains and worries, allowing them to come to the surface. The good news, however, is that the Lord never brings things to the surface that he doesn’t intend to heal.
“Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me” (Ps. 131:1, ESV).
There are many things we can offer up to the Lord and say, “This is too much. Only you can carry me through.” There are a lot of things that shouldn’t concern us, and worrying about them never makes things better. It only diminishes us. Jesus gives us examples of worrying about money, possessions, and what tomorrow may bring (Matt. 6:34).
But even more, I wonder if we might need to offer to God the management of our interior lives and emotional entanglements. There might be wounds from friends, intimates, and family that linger and torment us, creating a sustained inner dialogue that simply rehearses the pain over and over. There might be moments of humiliation and failure at work or in our marriages that make us shrink back and cringe at ourselves. Our management strategies haven’t brought healing or resolve, only lingering pain, and like cancer, the wounds only grow and fester.
Let us sit quietly with the Lord, being honest with him and ourselves, saying, “Oh Lord, I recognize I don’t have what it takes to heal these wounds. They control me more than I control them. They are too great for me.”
“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me”(Ps. 131:2, ESV).
For an infant, dependent upon a mother’s milk, every meal is an emergency, every hunger pang a panic. Only after the consistent experience of being fed, never going without care and attention, does a child learn that when hunger comes, it’s going to be okay. Food has always come, and it will come again. The infant can sit in her mother’s lap without groping and grasping because she has grown an instinct of being settled, even when the feelings of neediness and hunger arise.
While an infant grows an instinct of being settled, we must be intentional about it. “But I have calmed and quieted my soul.” I am intentionally seeking God’s presence, taking a deep breath, and remembering all the times he has been my help. As an infant cannot feed herself, neither can we appropriately heal our wounds and emotional entanglements.
Our management strategies have left us like unweaned children, groping and grasping, anxiously seeking out ways to feel safe in this world. Every emotion is an emergency and every pain a panic. Growing in spiritual maturity requires remembering we have never gone without care and attention from God. When the pain and sadness come, it’s going to be okay. The Spirit has always been near, and he will be near again.
“O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore” (Ps. 131:3, ESV).
We must be honest with ourselves. At times our interior entanglements and worry have governed our lives more than we’d like to admit. We are tossed to and fro by our anxious thoughts, and our own management strategies haven’t been effective. In fact, they have distanced and desensitized us from the experience of God’s presence and love for our healing and renewal. Let us seek the Lord, opening ourselves to him, hoping not in our self-management but in his presence and power. From this time forth and forevermore, lay your management strategies and safety schemes down. Hope in the Lord and his goodness.
John Starke is lead pastor at Apostles Church Uptown and lives with his wife, Jena, and their four children in New York City. He is the author of The Possibility of Prayer (IVP) and The Secret Place of Thunder (Zondervan).
