“I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in it’s mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.” (Psalm 131:2 MSG)
David has learned how to wait well. Perhaps, today, he could share that secret with us?
“I’ve kept my feet on the ground…”
He’s stayed in the game. He hasn’t give up, gone home or gone to bed. This is huge when we are waiting because so often waiting leaves us anxious, frustrated even furious or lethargic. David has decided to stay engaged in the process, with both feet on the ground.
“I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.”
David has figured out how to slow the racing rhythm of his chest. He’s realized that he won’t overthink or worry his way out of this predicament; his life is in God’s capable hands. He’s come to the correct conclusion that he is in the safest place a soul can be.
“Like a baby content in it’s mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.”
Well-loved babies don’t fret about the next meal or the next diaper change. They aren’t worked up about whether or not there will be a soft place to sleep when their eyes get heavy. They don’t struggle with fear for the future. They are simply content to be with their momma. As long as they can see or hear or feel mom, they know they’ll be well cared for, their needs will be met. They are safe and content within the loving arms of their mother.
Our heavenly Father invites us to this level of intimacy. And somehow, David – if only long enough to write this small psalm – attained it.
John Eldredge writes “To wait is to learn the spiritual grace of detachment, the freedom from desire. Not the absence of desire, but desire at rest.”
David was a man with deep desires. We know this because he had multiple wives, a few obtained on the same day. He fought wars and conquered people groups. His written words and undignified worship mark him as a deeply passionate person. Scripture describes him as “a man after God’s own heart.” David had desires, yet somehow he’d moved to a place of detachment from those desires and replaced them with peace as he waited on the Lord.
There’s a note on my desk, quick scribbles from a reading in “Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership” by Ruth Haley Barton. The coffee-ringed post it reads “Pray for Indifference. indifferent to matters of ego, prestige, organizational politics, person advantage, person comfort or fear.” It’s the prayer of a woman desperate to die to her flesh. It’s the prayer of a woman who is more interested in divine direction than self-protection. It’s the prayer of the woman I want to become: a woman without agenda or side hustle. A woman free from the anxiety of trying to figure it out. A woman disentangled from the desires of ego and totally devoted to the embrace of the Father.
Charles Spurgeon puts a bow in it for us when he writes “It is one of the shortest psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn. It speaks of a child, but it contains the experience of a man in Christ.”
“…waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy.” (Romans 8:24-25 MSG)
Our expectancy, our highest hope is intimacy with the Father. First on earth, and then in heaven. When we learn to wait well, we learn to become indifferent to anything less than His presence.
“For Moses, the presence of God was the Promised Land.” Ruth Haley Barton
For me, and maybe for you, also, may the Presence of God become our Promised Land. May we become indifferent to anything less.
Lord, we see how our desires wreak havoc on Your good plans for us. We needn’t look any farther than the Garden to see evidence of the damage. Move us toward indifference. Let us lay our appetites aside to take up fullest trust in Your attentive love. Let us live with heart and soul set on the Promised Land of Your presence. Amen.