Hunger and Rest (Ps. 131)

My youngest grandson, Aaron, will soon be four months old, and he wants to eat constantly, which his hefty weight of seventeen pounds reflects. He weighed a few ounces over nine pounds at birth, so admittedly, he started somewhat big. He’s growing and hungry, and just let him see his momma and he thinks about eating. Let him get sleepy, and he thinks about eating. Let him see anyone drinking or eating, and he thinks about getting his bottle or some food. The more he eats, the more he wants to eat, and the more sleepy he is the more restless he gets, especially when he is fighting what he needs to do, and all this while he looks anywhere but at the person who is holding him or trying to get his attention, busy little body that he is, while still somehow being a sweet snuggle-bug. 

Maybe you’ve experienced that restless hunger inside, especially when you aren’t actively doing something. Your mind isn’t engaged but it seems that your stomach is, and you go looking for something to eat because that must be it. But you eat a snack (maybe bedtime, maybe late afternoon), and it just doesn’t satisfy, and you're left hungry and restless, not knowing exactly what it is that will satisfy.

Psalm 131 by David is an ascent. An ascent is a psalm meant to be sung while rising—whether it be the rising from shepherding to kingship, the elevating rise to Jerusalem for a feast, or the climbing of a few steps to perform the duties of a priest in the temple. This particular psalm is only three verses, yet it speaks not only to David’s rise to kingship but also how he rose. The psalm reveals his deep contentment with where God has placed him and reveals a heart of praise.

lacking pride or haughtiness

David begins with humility and an assertion that his heart is not proud. Webster’s 1828 offers this as its first definition of proud: “having inordinate self-esteem; possessing a high or unreasonable conceit of one's own excellence, either of body or mind . . . a man conceives that any thing excellent or valuable, in which he has a share, or to which he stands related, contributes to his own importance, and this conception exalts his opinion of himself.” The entry goes on and lists arrogance, daring, presumption, loftiness, and ostentation along with the fore-mentioned self-esteem. In this psalm, David combines a mention of his own lack of pride along with his eyes not being haughty, which combines the idea of one’s own elevation in his/her own mind with a projection of that self-importance onto others’ lowly conditions, which is contempt. David had no prideful contempt within him for God’s elevation of him to the position of king, especially while he waited for God to accomplish the marvelous feat. He understood entirely that his position before God existed as a gift. Nothing within David could ever have lifted him to such a degree. 

I must ask myself if I can say along with David that my heart is empty of arrogance and my eyes of haughty disdain. Or has my heart, lying thing that it is (Jer. 17:9), told me I am more than I am? Is my heart feeding my hunger for anything that it can consume as I look around me at the world in which I live? Am I looking at the world through haughty eyes, listening to the world’s siren call, feeding on that same food that fuels it? Or am I content with my position, this place I am right now where God has placed me for His purposes and His glory? 

lacking arrogance

David’s further acknowledges God’s work in raising him to king in the first verse when he mentions not involving himself in “great matters or things too difficult” (AMP) for him. He doesn’t arrogantly go looking for a kingship or to slay giants. He is a simple shepherd whom God has beckoned into great matters and difficult things. David is content with living for God wherever he finds himself, in a cave, in a foreign king’s court, in the wilderness, in the pasture, in a palace. 

I too must ask what I am involving myself in—is it something I ambitiously desire or something God is calling me to do that seems difficult? There is a distinct difference. Do I feel that I have to run the show or do I simply trust God to reveal to me and bring about the things He desires for me to be involved in? His timing is everything. Jumping into waters too dangerous to swim in because I think I am big enough to handle it can lead to needing rescue or eve worse, death by drowning. I need to learn to swim before I dive in head-first to the deep water. David is not so foolish as to assert his kingship before God chooses to usher him in, even if he has been anointed already. He waits patiently and doesn’t try to run the kingdom from a cave.

exhibiting calm and quiet

David asserts that he has calmed and quieted his own soul like a weaned child who can rest with its mother instead of craving milk (v. 2), unlike my grandson, who in his infancy has yet to learn how to calm or quiet himself when he is sleepy. I love that in the Amplified version of this verse, the adverb surely is inserted: “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul.” 

Oh, to learn to consistently experience this childlike trust in the LORD, whatever He brings into my life! To rest in Him contentedly without needing anything else! This is a man composed, free from any discontent regardless of the storms raging around him. David rests in God’s closeness, trusting that in His timing, all will be well. 

exhorting others

David encourages others in his exhortation to Israel in verse 3, revealing a heart of praise: “Hope in the LORD from this time forth and forever.”  This David, who writes of a heart absent pride and eyes missing haughtiness, who writes of being content wherever God has placed him, who rests in his Father's arms, hopes in God with a hope that will not be crushed. If it could have been crushed, it would've been crushed in the circumstances of David's quick anointing to kingship, the soul-crushing length of time until he became king, the persecution of those who pursued him in between, the administration of a kingdom full of strife and division, the day-to-day living as a man whose heart longed for God in a body that reeked of flesh and sin, the debilitating loss of a son who betrayed him.

Regardless of where we find ourselves today, in easy times, in difficult ones, hungry or full, in defeat or victory, in humble circumstances or elevated ones, regardless of how many times we’ve failed in the past to trust God the way David does, we can start here, at this point, knowing that the hope we place in Him will never fail. We can look back at where we were and see His salvation and deliverance through Christ. We can stand in the middle of the storm and know that whatever comes, we have a future and a hope in Christ, a promise of eternal life with Him. He alone is enough, and He alone can satisfy the restless hunger inside that longs for something not quite in reach right this moment. Rest in the arms of the One who alone can provide and sustain. Rest like a child in his mother's arms, weaned, secure.