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Like a weaned child with its mother
(Psalm 131)
Andy Nagahara
On the Sundays that I speak, we are reading a series of psalms, and today we are reading Psalm 131. It has been eight years since I started this series, and since there are 150 psalms in total, I think we will be able to finish reading them by next summer.
The Psalms teach us important lessons even though we live in a time and culture completely different from those in which they were written. It is the answer to the question of how to maintain peace of mind and joy in the midst of the many difficult daily worries and sufferings.
Although today’s psalm is very short, here again, through the psalmist’s words, there are some important points that we should remember. Let’s read the whole thing first.
0 A song of ascents. Of David.
1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
What the psalmist is teaching us in this verse is not the kind of self-improvement “attitude” or “wisdom for life” that people often want to know about. Rather, having experienced various hardships and in a situation where things are still not all better, the psalmist knows that such prescriptions are completely unreliable and misguided.
The psalmist presents this wisdom here simply as two things to avoid and two things to do. Let’s look at each one in order. The first two are things to avoid.
A. Things that should be left to God
1. Proud and Haughty (1a)
My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty;
Pride and haughtiness are typical manifestations of sinful nature of human beings. Although on the surface these are attitudes toward other people, many Bible writers warn that in reality they are serious rebellion against God. In God’s eyes, people are almost the same in their sinfulness and lack of love, but they look down on each other.
Jesus was outraged by the pride and haughtiness of the rulers and religious leaders of his time, which was causing suffering to people and distancing them from God, and he was crucified so that people could connect directly with God through an encounter with Jesus.
Even today, religious organizations can end up driving people away from God through their pride and haughtiness.
Even though Jesus invites everyone to “follow me,” some people, based on their religious beliefs, deny the way some people are and say, “You are not worthy to approach God.”
This is pride and haughtiness, believing that one has the right to condemn people on behalf of God. This problem does not only exist in the world of religion, but affects the entire social system, where the pride and haughtiness of those who have causes suffering to those who do not have.
However, “pride and haughtiness” are not unrelated even if you are the one of the have-nots. In any kind of human relationship, our hearts become “proud and haughty.” Those who are looked down upon by others also have people who look down on them. Therefore, it is true that all of us are prone to pride and haughtiness.
And this is pride and haughtiness toward God, saying, “I can do without you. You are unnecessary to me.” Do you remember Job’s final words of realization, which were mentioned in the recent message on the Book of Job?
“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2)
Not being proud or haughty will make all our relationships healthy, but in order to do that, we must first not be proud and haughty toward God. This is only possible by beginning with the confession, “Not I, but You are my Lord,” and by constantly asking for the Holy Spirit’s help to maintain that attitude.
2. Not overly concerned with God’s work (1b)
The second thing to avoid is ” not to be overly concerned with God’s work. The second half of the verse 1 says:
I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.
The Book of Job, which we read earlier, continues as follows:
‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.(Job 42:3)
It is important to be interested in what God is doing. However, if this attitude is taken too far, it will lead to spreading false information about God. The expression ” not to be involved” translates directly as “not to walk” or “not to advance,” and can also mean “not to go in depth.”
Have you ever heard of the term “Bible Code”? The idea is that by connecting characters that appear in a certain pattern, such as every so often, in a string of letters in the Hebrew Bible, a hidden encrypted message will appear. It is said that these predictions predicted major modern events, but they have nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus. Such snooping will instead lead people away from the gospel of Jesus.
I am sometimes asked, “How can I know God’s will?” Why would people want to ask that? Perhaps they want to make the best choice possible. If there is such a thing as an infallible path if they know it correctly, then it would be worth trying to find out about it. However, God does not have a “will” in that sense in the first place.
The reason they fail in choosing a place to go to school, a job, or a marriage partner is never because it was “against God’s will.” In fact, if someone tells you, “This is God’s will for you,” it would be best to distance yourself from that person.
If we think we can know all of God’s thoughts, that would be pride and haughtiness toward God. If we accept that God is not a figment of human imagination and that we are His creation, then it is important to take one step at a time on the path before us, rather than speculate about an uncertain afterlife. Then, when you come to cross a crossroads, you can take a step in either direction after careful consideration.
B. What we need to do
1. Stilling and quieting one’s soul (2)
Now let’s move on to the first thing that needs to be done: read verse 2 again.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
This is the passage that interested me the most in today’s text. He sees his soul as neither a mature adult nor an infant in need of milk, but as an infant who has been weaned but still needs watching over. There are often expressions in the psalms in which the psalmist calls out to his own soul, and I think that’s an important perspective to take. It means to look at oneself objectively, but not just objectively, but to reflect on oneself by imagining God’s point of view.
The two verbs stilled and quieted appear here. The original meaning of the word translated as still is “to level the ground.” This involves plowing the land, creating furrows and preparing it for planting crops. Are your souls prepared to produce good things? Jesus teaches his disciples with this parable:
“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”
The seed is God’s word speaking to us. And the state of our souls is compared to the land. Today I introduced you to chapter 4 of Mark’s Gospel, but you can read the same parable in Matthew and Luke. Jesus gives a detailed explanation of this parable starting in verse 14, so please read it if you want to be sure.
The other verb, quiet, has a stronger nuance of “to silence.” As I said in the first half of my message today, we can encourage our proud and haughty hearts to lift up our eyes to God, close our mouths, and listen carefully.
This means that we can educate our minds. However, we ourselves are not as righteous, strong, wise, or kind as God. We are lazy, self-serving, and weak-willed. How is that possible? The answer is to stay as close to God as possible. As I always say, we need to make worship the center of our lives and live with the awareness that we are part of the body of Christ.
As I mentioned earlier, God is not the one who prepares the right answer in advance for our specific choices. Even if we find ourselves in a situation where we feel we have made a completely wrong choice, God will open the way for us to reach our destination, the “Kingdom of God.”
2. Putting hope in the Lord (3)
Now, I am talking about the last point. Let’s read verse 3.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
The phrase like “wait for the Lord” or “put hope in the Lord” have come up a lot recently, even outside of my speaking. It’s not something we do intentionally, so I feel God’s intention.
Are you tired of waiting for something right now? We are encouraged to wait with anticipation, not to give up in despair.
The word “wait and long” are used frequently in the Bible and are also commonly seen in the New Testament, but “waiting/longing for the Lord” is only found in Psalms, Isaiah, and Lamentations. This expression also appeared in Psalm 130, which was covered in the previous message. And Isaiah encourages us as follows:
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! (30:18)
but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (40:31)
You’re not the only one waiting. All of us here are waiting for the new grace that Jesus will give us. Also, from the times of the Old Testament to the present, all who have trusted in God have waited with expectation. And not a single one of them has been disappointed.
We are still waiting impatiently, but it is God who has brought us to each intermediate goal in life. The course and timing may have been quite different from what we had envisioned, but what the Lord does is what is best.
There are many people here who can testify to that. If you’re not sure if God will really meet your expectations, ask someone.
Let us encourage one another as we wait for the new grace that the Lord Jesus will give us.
(Prayer) God, thank you again this morning for teaching us how to live our lives through the psalms.
Please guide us so that we may continue to walk while keeping in mind the things we have been taught to avoid and the things we should do.
Speak to our souls, that we may encourage ourselves to listen to you and encourage one another as we wait with expectation for the new graces you have in store for us.
We put our hope in you and pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary
The pride and haughtiness that we easily fall into damages our relationship with God more than it damages our relationships with other people. It is also in our nature to want to get involved in matters that should be left to God, but this is also a nuisance to both people and God. What we should strive for is to ask God and tell ourselves not to let this happen. We are to believe in the Lord and wait expectantly for the problems that have not yet been resolved.
For Discussion
- Please share the blessings you have been looking forward to and received.
- What is a soul like a weaned infant beside its mother?