We desire to cultivate a quiet heart…a content heart…a weaned heart…a trusting heart. In days of ever-increasing worry…that is our goal…a quiet trusting heart
The Psalmist uses the image of a weaned child with his mother. The easiest way to grasp the point about this is to imagine the opposite….a baby that isn’t anywhere close to weaned yet. Here’s the thing about a baby that hasn’t been weaned. It’s still in the stage where each and every hunger pain is a cause for panic. The baby hasn’t learned enough yet to know where the food is coming from, or even whether it is coming at all, so every twinge of hunger sets it screaming. Nursing infants do not generally wait with poise and patience for their food. They are loud and upset and scared that they’re not going to eat.
The opposite is a weaned child. It may still be very young and basically helpless, but he’s been around the block a few times. None of the previous instances of hunger have resulted in his death, so that sort of fear is gone. He’s old enough to know that mom is pretty good about giving him what he needs, and even most of what he wants. Maybe he’s old enough to tell his mom he’s hungry. Maybe he’s even old enough to understand and be satisfied with the answer that dinner is cooking and will be ready to eat shortly. Bottom line…he’s learned that his caregivers are faithful in providing his care. He has learned to trust them.
I want you to ask yourself today, which picture best describes the condition of your soul before God? Are you a worrier? Does the least bit of bad news the cause for panic? When you go to God in prayer over evil, unjust or worrisome things…is your cry the scared whimper of an infant who doesn’t understand his world and has lost trust in its Caregiver or is it the simple acknowledgment of the one who is mature enough to say, “I’m hungry. I have a need.”
And when you are done praying over your need…are you fearful over the outcome, like the infant who is too immature to process its emotions OR are you able to wait in the calm and quiet of the child who has learned to trust his parent’s provision?
We know we want to replace anxiety with calm. We all want to replace worry with trust. So, how do we get there from here? Our goal is in verse 2, and the things we need to do to reach that goal surround it, in verses 1 and 3. Sometimes your doctor will prescribe pills for you and the medicine is hidden beneath a layer of waxy, candy-like coating. Your body needs the medicine, but your stomach must first digest through the coating to get at it. That’s as it is here. If you want the good stuff of verse 2, you need to digest your way through what surrounds it.
