Resting in God’s Embrace
Psalm 131
We’ve been journeying through the Songs of Ascent, which lead us from where we are to where God is. The journey has noted two ways in which we travel: (1) Physically through external difficulties to arrive at the Father’s house with the Father’s people; and (2) Psychologically through internal difficulties to arrive at the place of the Father’s embrace.
When I was in Turkey with the Air Force I learned just how old and unique it is. It’s an exciting place to visit, if you ever get a chance—it’s really an accent land. I’ve not tried this but I hear in that in Turkey there’s a ridge that offers some of the world’s best hang gliding tours.
We might imagine that those who hang glide are very thin, bird-like people in slick clothes so as to cause minimal wind resistance. So here is this twig of a Turk who says, “Sure, I’ll take you for a ride, climb on” I climb on and off we dive over the ridge, and I’m hanging on to this dude with slick clothing for dear life. But he’s miscalculated my weight and we’re plummeting to earth too fast. We could crash. If I let go, I could die. This is not a good situation.
That’s what I think of when I think of hang gliding in Turkey. But the reality is that they actually do harness you in. They embrace you with safety straps and a helmet, and a certified instructor who is appropriately selected to handle your girth. They do all of that so you’ll have a sense of security as you enjoy the journey.
The journey might still scare the spit out of you, you might still be holding on for dear life, especially if it is your first time, but they aren’t going to drop you. And when you realize this is true, you can nestle into the embrace, trust the straps and the instructor, and enjoy the scenery.
Psalm 131 leads us to think about making the journey through a situation that can fill our lives with worries and wounds that make us feel squeamish and scared and restless like that ridge would if you just walked up to it and looked over the edge. So often, we look at ourselves and say, “Right, I’m not calm, cool, and collected. I’m not content. I’m full of stress and anxiety over what I have or don’t have, over what will happen or won’t happen.”
When folks see you on vacation, what do they see? Do they see someone who can’t sit still for 5 minutes? Do they see someone who is driven by an inner anxiety? Do they see someone who has to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders? Or, do they see someone who is calm and contented; someone who can allow others to help carry their burdens; someone who doesn’t think they have to play God and sort everything and everyone out?
What do they see? Do they see someone who is childlike or childish?
What’s the difference? Well, being “childlike” is being at peace in the presence of one’s parents. There’s absolute trust in their competence, wisdom, protection, and comfort—in their embrace.
I remember being about 5 years old. My parents took my bothers and me to get school clothes at Kmart. (Kmart was still around; it was the late 1970s.) And somehow I got separated from my parents. I was walking up and down the aisles confused, the stores was massive, blue lights were flashing, sales were being announces over the PA. I was lost and I started to cry. I was pretty sure that life was over. Eventually, someone took me to the customer service desk where they announced my name over the PA, calling for my parents to come. When I saw them coming down the aisle towards me I felt secure again—peace.
That’s the place of the soul that Psalm 131 speaks of today, the childlike soul, which experiences God’s calming embrace. Let’s look at the psalm.
Psalm 131, ESV
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 too marvelous 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.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.
My son, Kellen, doesn’t know anything about economic. He doesn’t know about the law of supply and demand. He only knows the law of Kellen: he demands, and mommy and daddy supply. Eventually, if we do this parenting thing right, we can move him out of babyhood and into toddlerhood where he’ll be more content that we’re just there—his demand lessens. We’re there to hold a hand, issue a cuddle, or kiss a boo-boo.
That’s a picture of a weaned babe. The days of the breast or bottle are over. The child starts to sit in the highchair with the family and eat solids—Brittany just assembles Kellen’s highchair this week.
Next comes the phase when the child can sit by themselves and play with their toys. And, then, every so often they go on a reconnaissance mission. They leave those precession treasures, and check and see if mom and dad are still there—just a spot check. The howl for food is gone replaced with the question: “Will you read me a story?”, which is a way of expressing a deeper need: “Can I sit on you lap, and feel you arms embracing me, and hear you voice?”
If you are anything like me, its a struggle to live in that place, the calming companionship that comes from communion with the Lord. Sometimes life is a struggle. You can fill your bucket up with one big Tonka truck, or with several scoops of sand, but either way it’s a heavy burden. And even while Jesus said: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28), the only reply you can mutter is: “I hear you, Lord, but I can’t get to you; this bucket is too heavy.”
That’s the internal struggle. It’s a struggle to rest in God’s embrace.
A Resolve Not To Be
The palmist—who is David here—has an idea of where his soul can be because of faith. Therefore, he makes a resolve not to something: not be panic driven and anxiety filled.
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 too marvelous for me.
“My heart is not lifted up; my eyes aren’t raised up; I resolve not to be proud or arrogant, Lord.”
We can really be proud and arrogant, can’t we? I catch myself all the time. You go out to enjoy a night on the town and there you see something going on and you say, “Oh my, I wouldn’t do that; I wouldn’t say that. I’m flabbergasted.” Or you’re driving on the freeway and thinking, “Why is it that I’m the polite driver that’s getting out of everyone else’s way, but no one is getting out of my way?”
There’s a tendency to lift ourselves over others. But there’s also a tendency in the human heart to lift ourselves over God too. “My moral judgement is splendid! My sense of justice supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! In fact, I can critique God for what he’s failed to do. I can sort out my life just fine, thank you.”
There is lurking within us this presumption to by like God and to decide things as God (Ezek 28:1–5).
The Bible is full of examples where folks who seemed to truly know God and love God, also had a presumption lurking in their souls that to be like God.
You have one of the good kings, Asa, for example. On an eve of one battle he prayed: “Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against you” (2 Chron 4:11). Yet later when Asa was old and having trouble with his feet, he turned to one quack after another instead of the God he has trusted to defeat his enemies.
Then there was Hezekiah, another good king. He really did revive scripture-based faith in Israel, called people back to God. But late in his life he became proud, and started flaunting all the wealth that God had given him.
I’ve given you those ancient examples, because they’re safe. They’re old, so not too pokey.
But the point is that we’re not all that different, are we? We want to feel special, so we flaunt it. We feel a certain way right now, so we take matters to ourselves.
Sometimes we even talk to ourselves the issues of others: “I’m going to get them, get this chaos sorted; I’ll get them pointed north.” Perhaps that’s why David says, “I do not occupy myself with things / too great and too marvelous for me” (Psa 1:1).
One of my great father figures likes to tell me: “I’m not your mother.” In other word, “Sorting you out is above my pay grade; I’m not going to lay awake at night worrying about how to fix you. That’s God’s realm, not mine.”
But the attitude that wants to fix it, that wants to decided things goes all the way back to the garden. When Adam and Eve took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they weren’t confused about what good and evil were all about. That wasn’t about the difference between good and evil. It was about their wanting to be the one who determined the difference for themselves.
The point is this: When we take to ourselves a responsibility that isn’t ours, we ruin our lives. We plunge ourselves into all sorts or pains and problems.
Picture that skinny hang glider guy who see me coming. He says to himself, “Oh, if I’ve got to take Dan for a ride, then I’ve got to beef up.” So he goes to the gym. He doesn’t know how to handle free weights, but he sees other doing it, and thinks to himself, “Right, I’ve got this.” He lays down on a bench and above is a bar loaded up with massive lumps of metal. And with a great confidence throws his energy at the bar and moves it enough to knock it off the bench press, but the whole thing comes crashing down onto his neck nearly killing him. Oops!
Responsibilities that are too high for us. When you try to play God, it will wreck you on the inside. Anxiety, restlessness, criticalness… all of sudden these become your traveling buddies. They never console, they never comfort. All they do is frustrate you and terrorize you, no matter how buff you look on the outside.
David was the psalmist here. Even while he carried lots of responsibilities, he says, “Nope! I resolve not to be like that. I’m not going down that road.” I think one only says that when they know how easy it is for them to turn off onto that road.
A Resolve to Be
Instead… David, who was a warrior, poet, and king; David whose weaknesses were great, and whose flaws were monumental says:
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
In other words, “I have struggled against the anxiety and fear and all of that, and so at the center of my soul, my nephesh, the center of my will and desire, I am resolved to be different.”
When you take a vacation you get a bit of tranquility, right? Maybe you’re on vacation, however, and you get a bit depressed because you think, “This isn’t going to last long. I have to return to the real world soon.”
But do you know what Psalm 131 is saying? It’s saying, “Actually, what you’re calling the real world, that place where you think you’ve got to run the universe, that’s a defiance of reality. That’s a refusal to trust the one who actually runs the universe.”
I think most of us are more real and more authentic when we’re on vacation. My wife tells me that she would rather be with me on vacation than anywhere else. What she doesn’t know is that I’d rather be with me on vacation too. Because on vacation I’m calm and content.
That kind of contentment doesn’t come because everything is done for you like you’re a baby. Contentment comes from a resolve to remain in companionship with the Father. The psalm paints the picture of a weened child who is still with it’s mother. There’s a closeness, a companionship.
It’s this companionship with God that moves David from the proud and arrogant road, that’s riddled with the pot holes of anxiety, and fear, and restlessness, onto the trusting road where stillness and quietness for the soul is found. To put it differently, how does the warrior king battle anxiety and stress and restlessness? He fights the battles within through intimacy with God.
Now, I want you to think about this for a moment… Research says that the heaviest smartphone users click, tap, or swipe their phones 5,427 times a day. That’s the top 10 percent, perhaps they’re excessive. The rest of us only touch that addictive device 2,617 times a day. Beyond this the researchers discovered that most folks completely underestimated their phone touching by half.
If I could borrow the metaphor… How many taps, types, swipes and clicks take place daily between you and God? If our companionship with God rivaled our companionship with our phones, would we be shocked by the result? How about it we remember the promise: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (Jam 4:8)?
Connecting. Companionship. Being quiet, filling your mind with the truth of God and his promises will change you in the midst of the journey.
There’s a story about the prophet Elijah. He once had a duel with a group of false priests. He challenged them to pray to their god and he would pray to his to see which one was real and would show up and burn the sacrifice. 850 priests of Baal took up the challenge, they prayed and nothing happened. Then lonely little Elijah poured water over the sacrifices and prayed, and got send fire from heaven and burned up the sacrifice and evaporated all the water. Then Elijah, told his people to smoke those false priests. When Queen Jezebel found out she vowed to kill Elijah. So, all of a sudden, this great prophet who had stood up to 850 priest was afraid. His anxiety got the better of him and he ran and hid in a cave.
That’s where the Lord finally got him alone … and said to him …
“Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11–13).
“What am I doing, Lord? Why, I’m hiding. Can’t you tell? I’ve been busy forgetting that you’re running the universe. But I’m here and I’m longing that you’ll find me next to the blue light special—I need your embrace.”
Elijah heard God when he was quiet and still.
The war within us is a war for who we will trust. If I trust me, I get anxiety and restlessness. If I trust Him, I get peace and rest.
I’m not trusting God to give me what I want. I’m trusting him to give me himself, his presence, his embrace, and his goodness. And that’s enough.
On the days that you believe it, you’ll be different. And on the days you don’t, your family and friends will let you know, because they’ll tell you how much more they like you when you’re on vacation—that’s a big hint!
A Resolve for Thee
In closing, I’ve got a tiny point. In the last verse, David turns to the people of God and says: n“O Israel, hope in the Lord / from this time forth and forevermore,” for hope is another word for trust. It’s a command for the people on the journey.
As we end today, remember when Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The road of the journey is Jesus. He’s not a way to peace and rest, he is peace and rest. When you come to him, when you’re up in his arms—like the little children that he told the disciple to let come to him—you’ll know the peace of his presence.
Amen.