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My heart is not lifted up…

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“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me.”
(Psalm 131:1 ESV)

We don’t know the occasion that prompted the writing of the 131st Psalm, but I think we all have been there before.  Just three verses long, this is one of the most heartfelt, humble, and sincere Psalms in Scripture.  It is one of the Songs of Ascent (Psalm 120 – 134) which were used by faithful worshippers ascending Mt. Zion to worship at the Temple.  Ultimately, it is a song of humble trust in the Lord, but it’s how we get there that’s important.

This week has been a tough week for some.  Some have had injuries.  Some have been sick.  Some have had their marriage fall apart around them.  Some have lost loved ones and friends.  Some have had life-changing, hope-shattering news.  Some have been wrestling with an important decision for weeks and months and are still no closer to a conclusion.  Some are dreading tomorrow and the uncertainty it brings.  Some have been wrestling with sin and disobedience in their own lives they just don’t see how God could continue to use them let alone love them.

That’s when this Psalm speaks to us.  “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not too high.”  Commentators suggest that this refers to the humble heart that is not lifted up in pride, and that very well may be the case.  But I hear it speaking also to the humble heart that is too overcome with pain to be lifted up.  It’s almost as if David is saying, “God, the joy of my salvation has been so assaulted by the crisis of this situation that it is impossible for me to raise up my eyes to you, to lift my heart in praise.”  Maybe this was part of David’s prayer when his first child with Bathsheba died; perhaps he prayed this when his own sons rebelled against him.  We don’t know the occasion, but we know the feeling.

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2).

David, here, teaches us that it is important, when our souls are overwhelmed, to quiet ourselves and trust in the Lord.  When we read this verse, it is easy to overlook that word “weaned,” and simply picture a young child being comforted in the arms of his mother.  A beautiful and comforting picture, indeed; but not what the Psalm is saying.  James Boyce writes:

When David says that his soul is “like a weaned child,” he is not saying that he has always been content with God or even merely that he is content with God now.  He is reflecting on the difficult weaning process in which a child is broken of its dependence on its mother’s milk and is taught to take other foods instead.  Weaning is usually accompanied by resistance and struggle on the child’s part, even by hot tears, angry accusing glances, and fierce temper tantrums, and it is difficult for the mother.  But weaning is necessary if the child is to mature.  David is saying that he has come through the weaning process and has learned to trust God to care for him and provide for him, not on David’s terms but on God’s terms.  (Boyce, James.  Psalms: An Expository Commentary (Vol. 3) (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998).  1150.)

“O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore” (Psalm 131:3).

Whatever the crisis that David faced, when he “calmed and quieted his soul,” he could return to hope in the Lord.  Knowing that “God loved him and would care for him even if it was not exactly the way he anticipated or most wanted, he came to love God for God himself” (Boyce).  Rather than loving the gifts that God has given, rather than merely believing in God, David calls us back to loving God himself, believing God – taking Him at His word.

Whatever you may be facing when you read this, if your heart is downcast, calm and quiet your soul, putting your hope in the Lord, for He is faithful and good.  Only God is worthy of your hope and trust.  Only God will never let you down.  He cares for you, and will provide for you, even in ways you cannot possibly hope for or imagine.  As the companion Psalm 130 says in its conclusion,

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.  (Psalm 130:7-8)

SDG

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…

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“Give us this day our daily bread…”
(Matthew 6:11 ESV)

Its Wednesday again, and here I am wondering What am I going to write about today?  Relentlessly Wednesday keeps coming, and I struggle to find something that will be a blessing to you.  I am so thankful for the encouragement that you give me, telling me how what I have written has encouraged you, how the midweek message is just what you needed to hear.  Sunday’s don’t bother me as much.  I’ve been preaching for almost 10 years now, I know how to study and prepare.  But this weekly writing is new to me.  I still get anxious for Wednesdays.

Each of us has that one thing (or many things) that we get anxious over.  What will I write about?  Will I get that job?  Will he/she ask me out for the Homecoming Dance?  Can our marriage survive this?  Will my family/children be provided for if something happens to me?  Will I recover from this illness?  Will I be welcomed and secure in my new home?  Can I find the strength to overcome this temptation and avoid sin?  Sometimes the thought of what is coming tomorrow can crush us today.  We can be so overcome and overwhelmed by anxiety about what may come that we lose hope and begin to despair.

One of the most repeated commandments of scripture is, “Do not be afraid.”  Jesus knew the tendency of our hearts was to lose sight of what God has done in the past, to fixate on the uncertainty of our future, and to be overcome with anxiety and despair.  This is why He taught us to pray to God for our daily bread – to teach us and remind us to trust in God daily for the grace we need to face the day.  Just as God provided manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16:35), just as God feeds the birds and clothes the lilies in all their splendor (Matthew 6:28), God will provide for you.

Simply telling you not to worry, though, is only half the solution.  Often times, we have to supplement a negative behavior with a positive one (I used to vacuum whenever I wanted to snack at night).  The same thing applies to your spiritual life.  Unless you supplant your anxiety with something else, you will soon return to your fears and doubts.  So what can you do?

Think about today…  Jesus pointed out the futility of our anxieties, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life…  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious enough for itself” Matthew 6:27).  Stewing over the problems we face and our inability to deal with them only compounds the problems.  Too often we rely on our own resources and our limited vision, and wind up in a bigger mess than when we started.  But when we realize that our God is bigger than the problems we face, we can find great strength and encouragement.  Lamentations 3:22-26 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.  It is good that one should wait patiently for the salvation of the Lord.”  We need to learn to wait for the Lord, to trust in his grace that he has given for this day.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not;
As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.

Prayer and Thanksgiving… Paul teaches in Philippians 4:6, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”  How many times do we run headlong into a problem without ever taking it to the Lord in prayer?  Don’t we usually find ourselves up to our necks in our own undoing before we finally cry out to God?  Take a moment right now and think of those things that you are most anxious about.  Now tell God about it, make your request before the throne of God, and be sure to thank God for listening and for the ways He’s worked in your life before and continues to work today.  Go ahead… I’ll wait.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Trust in His promises – One of the things that prayer and thanksgiving does is it helps us to remember God’s faithfulness in the past, and his promise for the future.  When the Israelites began to wonder whether God would deliver them, they would be reminded of the way His mighty right arm and delivered them from Egypt and provided for them in the wilderness.  When the early church faced persecution and oppression, they were encouraged by remembering the mighty work of deliverance through Jesus our savior.  Even today, when we wonder if maybe this obstacle is too big for God, let us remember all that God has done and have hope for what he is about to do.  God has promised good things (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28), and “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it” (Numbers 23:19)?

Great is thy faithfulness!
Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed thy hand hath provided
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

SDG