"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."
Dear Believer, this Psalm has two very great lessons that we need to learn. The psalmist tells us of two great dangers here: to be proud and assume we can do all things on our own and to be so dependent upon God that we are unable to grow.
We have the capacity to solve problems with the intellect given to us by our Creator, and so we are easily tempted to fix our problems ourselves, before we bring them to our Father. We will attempt all other solutions before we bring it to Him, when this is not as it should be. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5 that we should "pray without ceasing." This does not mean that we pray without stopping, for this would be physically impossible. The meaning in the original text is more like a sneeze. When we are prompted with an aggravation in our nostril, we sneeze as a first response. In life, when faced with difficulties, our first, natural response should be to drop to our knees in prayer. Do not wait until things are "too big" to give it to God, for He longs to have us bring Him our concerns.
The second part of the text describes a child who is content being with its mother, but not simply for provision. A weaned child is one that no longer needs the milk from the mother. It is natural for a child to grow less dependent upon its mother, and in the same way, it is natural for us to grow in our faith. Although we will always be dependent upon our heavenly Father, He longs for us to grow in maturity. He longs for us to spend time with Him, not only because we need Him, but because we enjoy His presence. God will leave us in a trial and seem to be silent, so that we can learn to trust Him, even when He does not immediately take away our difficulties. We cry out for Him to take away the trial, and He waits silently as we learn to trust in Him, even when He is silent. There are many believers who are crippled in their faith, because they will not take steps of obedience without a sign from God that it is the correct path. As we grow in our faith, we learn that our communion with God. daily, makes our decisions in accordance with His will, as John 15:1-11 states. As we abide with Christ, our desires become more aligned with His desires, and therefore we can walk in confidence that our decisions are in accordance to His will, while also enjoying God's presence in a deeper way than simply relying on Him, as we grow in our faith and begin to trust in God.
