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. -Psalm 131
Short and sweet, but not short and shallow is this Psalm. It addresses a common human tendency and gently diagnoses some heart motivations that need to be addressed. The apex of the Psalm is perhaps in verse 2 where it says that I do not occupy myself with things too marvelous for me. What does this mean?
After getting a little help from David Powlison in his book Seeing with New Eyes, I can say that the propensity to occupy oneself with things “too marvelous for me” is the propensity to occupy oneself with things a person shouldn’t. We recently got a dog. It’s a wonderful dog. Every morning Rosie comes to wake me up at quarter to six by walking to the side of my bed to get me to play with her. When I think of Rosie I think about how her life consists of eating, playing, and sleeping on our couch. I find myself saying: “Rosie, you have got it made, you don’t have a care in the world.” Kids are like this. We can look at kids and think to ourselves, “your life is easy compared to mine...you don’t have a fraction of my responsibility, I wish life could be as simple as yours.”
Well, maybe it can be. Maybe it should be. I don’t want to trivialize the difficulties of life because I know they are real. However, I want to address what Psalm 131 addresses: occupying yourself with things too wonderful for you. Are you trying to play the role of God when you shouldn’t? Do you concern yourself with things that are so far out of your control that all you can do is bring unneeded stress into your life? In a very gentle way Psalm 131 is saying “stop it”, “stop trying to be God.” When we think of pride and arrogance we think of someone who is loud, who draws attention to themselves, and someone who might brag about themselves because they think they are better than they really are.
This Psalm says you don’t have to be loud and braggadocious to be guilty of this sin. The person who is constantly stressing themselves over things clearly out of their control is guilty of what is addressed in verse 1, a heart that is lifted up. This means that much of our stress that we face is a self-inflicted wound and it is connected to our desire to self-exalt ourselves. You may not think of yourself as arrogant or self-exalting but if you regularly face stress because of things outside of your control you need to hear the rebuke of Psalm 131 and admit that maybe you do think you are better than you are, as quiet and reserved as you might be.
Just as the Psalmist confesses their sin of occupying themselves with things “too wonderful for me” they also see it their responsibility to repent. Repentance in this case is to turn from acting as God and hoping in the LORD. In verse three we read “I have calmed and quieted my soul.” How were they able to do this? By hoping in the Lord. Repentance in this area means coming to the recognition that you are trying to be God, realizing you need to stop acting as God so that you can trust in God as a child and finding quietness as a result. Let God be God and you will be as a child, a weaned child who is satisfied in the security of their mother.
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