Psalm 131

The great theologian Charles Spurgeon said this about Psalm 131: “It is one of the shortest Psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn.”

Since it’s so short, I’ll quote the whole thing:

My heart is not proud, LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Weaning is the process of breaking a child’s dependence on something. What the child is being weaned from is usually not something bad, just something that—if held onto—would cripple his maturity and keep him from what is best. As parents, we want our children to grow not just in height and weight, but also in wisdom and knowledge and relationships. The same is true for what God wants for us when it comes to our spiritual growth.

In this case, the child is being weaned from his dependence upon his mother, whom he has used to satisfy his desires. Thus, weaning is a step in relational maturity and helps the child come to love his mother for her own sake.

We need this same kind of weaning process with God in order to help us achieve spiritual maturity in our relationship with Him. When we are spiritual infants, our relationship with God is based mostly on what He can do for me. We cry out instantly at every twinge of hunger or other discomfort, expecting God to come running and meet every demand. And I think that—just as the mother of a newborn responds to his every cry—God spends a lot of time while we are spiritual infants “proving” to us that we can depend on Him.

Once we have enough evidence that God is trustworthy, however, He begins the process of weaning us from things we think are important—things that may be good, but that also may be keeping us from growing up and experiencing God’s best. During those times of growing pains, the psalmist says that we can choose to be like a weaned child with its mother, quiet and content and expectant. We can learn to rest in God because of who He is and what He has done, not because we know what He can do for us.

In this way, we move from loving God for our sake to loving God for His sake, which is to say, we grow up.

This process may not be easy, but it is necessary. And it’s good for us to remember that by not satisfying us in the short-term, God is ultimately satisfying us in the long-term. For which of us parents wants our children to remain unable to walk, talk, dress themselves, or feed themselves? Which of us parents wants our children to never grow and experience the world beyond the confines of our own two arms?

No! We want our children to grow up so we can share love, life, and the world with them.

And God wants the same thing.