Skip to main content

Neither Proud...

             Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes arrogant; nor do I involve myself in great matters, or in things too difficult for me. I have certainly soothed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child resting against his mother, my soul within me is like a weaned child. Israel, wait for the Lord from this time on and forever. (Psalm 131)

 

My thoughts go in two directions about the first sentence. The first is “Ha! Liar!” Sometimes, there’s even a “Dude. Hold my coffee,” thought or two. The second is “This is all I want to do. Make the big and difficult matters disappear, and let me garden, craft, and write. Why can’t I just be a hermit?” That’s a topic I might do well to explore further, but I suspect it conflicts with the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The second sentence also gets split responses. The first is, “Soothed and quieted? Ha!” and the second is, “That’s what I want.”

Mr. Peterson wrote that the song includes not being too big for our britches but also not being a cranky baby constantly in need. Some people seem to be incapable of doing anything for themselves, and sometimes that’s a lack of experience. Still, other times, it’s just a variation of being too big for our britches. We may not command people to put us at the center of their lives and serve us, but we can whimper them into it, and that works just as well. And there are times when I think I say, “Dude. Hold my coffee” at this end of the spectrum, too.

It's not unusual for me to try to prove I’m “good enough” or even “better than you.” I also crawl into bed and start in with “Lord, I was a miserable failure today, yada, yada, yada,” every night. I also know from when I was jogging and walking more that it tended to take about 30 minutes to get past all the garbage in my mind and all the verbal beatdowns I wanted to deliver to people who weren’t there- if I worked at it.

The thing is that both extremes can be defeated if we shift our focus from ourselves to God. Some people do what’s called (by some) a centering or breath prayer. The idea is to clear the mind - and I’ve heard well-meaning folks warn against the “emptying of the mind” practiced (supposedly) in Eastern meditation. If you kick all thoughts out, who knows what can wander in? But I’m not suggesting we be brainless or thoughtless, but to practice choosing where our focus will be, and making that choice be somewhere other than all that garbage. It sounds like a plan to try.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more