This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 131

Reflections

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
~ Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss Psychiatrist

Christianity is not about our disciplined pursuit of God, but about God’s relentless pursuit of us– to the point of dying on a cross for us that we might become friends.
~ Peter Scazzero, 1956- , Psychotherapist, Author

One of the shortest Psalms to read, one of the longest to learn.
~ Charles Spurgeon, 1834-1892, English Pastor

The transition from a sucking infant to a weaned child, from squalling baby to quiet son or daughter, is not smooth. It is stormy and noisy. It is no easy thing to quiet yourself: sooner may we calm the sea or rule the wind or tame a tiger than quiet ourselves. It is a pitched battle. The baby is denied expected comforts and flies into rages or sinks into sulks. There are sobs and struggles. The infant is facing its first great sorrow and it is in sore distress. But ‘to the weaned child his mother is his comfort though she has denied him comfort. It is a blessed mark of growth out of spiritual infancy when we can forgo the joys which once appeared to be essential, and can find our solace in him who denies them to us.’
~ Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

We are not called to be awesome, not called to be amazing, nor called to be ‘more’. We are called to be loved. We are called to calm and quiet our souls in the arms of the one who is awesome; the one who is more; and in the arms of one who is exceedingly able to do beyond what we could ever ask or imagine.
~ Scott Sauls, Pastor, Sermon Clip

The point of this verse [v.2] is blunted by the RSV, which pictures a baby pacified at its mother’s breast; whereas the psalm emphasizes the word ‘weaned’, thereby drawing an analogy between the child which no longer frets for what it used to find indispensable, and the soul which has learnt a comparable lesson.
~ Derek Kidner, 1913-2008, British Old Testament Scholar