Psalms For Life, 3: "In God's Arms" Scripture: Psalm 131

 ¹ 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 marvellous for me.
² But I have calmed and quietened my soul,
   like a weaned child with its mother;
   like a weaned child is my soul within me.
³ O Israel, hope in the LORD
   from this time forth and for evermore. (ESV)

- Have you got an answer for everything? Do you ever feel like you have to have an answer for everything? It is the proud that think they have all the answers. The proud think that they have it all together. They think they know all the answers or are thoroughly convinced that we can and will find them, even if we do not immediately know them. 

- Prideful people are always looking for great and marvellous things. They act like they truly think they know it all. The prideful are often unwilling to give an inch to someone who may know more than they about a matter or a subject. Even if the other person is an authority, the prideful tend to turn a deaf ear as they are often tooting their own horns. Prideful people are always comparing themselves to others, boasting in their own accomplishments, yet are inwardly discontent. The prideful man or woman is always scheming and planning how to outdo, outperform, and show-up everyone else.

- But sooner or later, life raises the most troubling questions, questions that we are simply incapable of answering, questions that leave us despondent, grieving, depressed, and even humiliated.

- What do you do when you don't have all the answers? When life brings you to the place where you do not know the answer, after looking high and low, yet still left with the same question, what do you do? When you don't even know where to begin to look and are overwhelmed, what do you do? To whom do you turn?

- The prayer of King David represented in this Psalm is David's response to the questions, "What do you do or where do you turn when you don't have the answers?"

- How does David deal with questions he cannot answer? David deals with questions he cannot answer by climbing onto the lap of the Lord.

- ¹ 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 marvellous for me.

- The first thing David does is humble himself before Almighty God.  David knows that God is greater and God is higher than any other and in that knowledge he surrenders himself to God.

- By humbling himself and surrendering to God, David put aside the temptations of pride in himself and his accomplishments. He had much to be proud of as the king who defeated the Philistines and sat on the throne at the beginning of Israel's Golden age. David could have chosen pride promenade, but he chose instead humble highway.

- While it is good and right to celebrate accomplishments with thanksgiving in your heart, when those accomplishments lead to self-centered pride it becomes increasingly difficult, if not downright impossible, to embrace humility.

- Pride makes it impossible to do the second thing that David chose to do.

- ² But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
   like a weaned child with its mother;
   like a weaned child is my soul within me.

- David deals with questions he cannot answer by climbing onto the lap of the Lord. When you humble yourself before God, it is at that point that you can calm and quiet your soul.

- David used the image of a child at rest with its head on its mother's breast like a pillow. For me, that is a powerful image. It reminds me of when Abbi and Zoe were smaller. There is a special beauty I see when I look at a child sleeping on her mother or father's chest. He is oblivious to the cares of the world. She is safe in the arms of her loving mother. In those arms, there is peace and quiet, calm and contentment. In those arms, nothing else matters.

- When Abbi was small, she was colicky and the only way we could get her to sleep was to place her on her mother's chest in the comfort of her presence. Later, she also frequently climbed up into my arms to fall asleep laying on my chest. Although Zoe was never colicky, even today when she needs comfort she climbs up onto her mother's lap & into her arms.

- There is something special about the love that is exchanged when a child climbs up onto a mother or father's lap and leans into the chest of that parent. It expresses a deep bond of trust built by love. I believe that God wants parents and children to dwell in that experience and remember it, so that we will learn that he wants to treat us the same way. God loves us like that!

- When life is overwhelming. When we are grieving. When we are burned out, chewed up, & broken. When we run out of proud answers, then what do we need to do? We need to humbly climb onto the lap of God.

- God wants us to drop our pride, surrender ourselves, and allow him to be our Abba, Daddy, Papa, the God of all comfort who comforts us in our distress.

- It is only when we have been with God that our hopes are restored. Only then is the possibility that the hope that we have can be shared powerfully, only when we have been with God and understand that he loves us & is always present to embrace us. It is only then that we can best share his love.

- David wrote: ³ O Israel, hope in the LORD
   from this time forth and for evermore.

- According to David, it is in God alone in whom our hope may be found. When we run out of proud answers, what do we need to do?

- When you run out of proud answers, humbly climb onto the lap of God.

- When there is in an unmet need in your life, God is able to meet it! No matter what the circumstances, your life is safe when you are in the arms of the living God.

- In 1999 when I was fresh out of divinity school, we had very little money. Toni and I were convinced that we were where God wanted us to be, but that did not mean that all our needs were immediately met.

- In fact, that year we were quite often short of cash and a number of times we came to the point when we wondered if we would have enough to get by.

- However, God demonstrated to us over and over again his care for us in even the smallest of things. At that time, Toni kept a record of the money that we received as a result of answered prayer. The total for the year was $3600.

- To me, that money is an amazing thing for which I am truly thankful. We will never know how that year might have turned out had we not placed our trust in the living God and climbed onto his lap to share with him all our needs and receive his loving care. We will never know what would have happened, but we do know what did happen.  When we placed our trust in the Lord, he took care of all our needs.

- No matter what your situation, you can be assured that all your needs will be met in the arms of God. 

- When you run out of proud answers, humbly climb onto the lap of God.