Psalm 131: The Trusting Song

For Meditation

Psalm 131 is a small text that has big things to say to us. It is a Psalm about the death of pride, the death of self-worship, and the hope that comes from a life rooted in humble trust in God. It reminds us who we are (and who we are not) even as it reminds us who God is. In just a couple verses, the psalmist beckons us to glory in our limitations because they are messengers of grace.

In his article, “Peace, be still: Learning Psalm 131 by Heart”, David Powlinson composes the ani-psalm 131. It goes like this:

Self,
my heart is proud (I’m absorbed in myself),
and my eyes are haughty (I look down on other people),
and I chase after things too great and too difficult for me.
So of course I’m noisy and restless inside, it comes naturally,
like a hungry infant fussing on his mother’s lap,
like a hungry infant, I’m restless with my demands and worries.
I scatter my hopes onto anything and everybody all the time.

As you prepare your heart his week, find a quiet place and read Psalm 131, and then read Powlinson’s Anti-Psalm. Take ten minutes to prayerfully answer the following questions Powlinson offers to help us identify the “ladders to nowhere” that pride erects:

Where do you raise up ladders of achievement? How do you go for it, go for victory, go for grades, go for promotion, go for the big church, go for the idealized devotional life?
Where do you clamber up ladders of acquisition? If only you get a little bit more, get the goodies, get the security, get the recognition.
Where do you race up ladders of appetite Gratify your need for ease, gratify hunger or lust or superiority, gratify your need to control or to be understood.
Where do you scuttle up ladders of avoidance? Get away from poverty, get away from rejection, get away from suffering, get away from people.

As the Spirit lovingly illuminates your heart, take time to confess to the Lord any sins the Spirit reveals during this time.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17

Psalm 131

(The Message)

1 God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,
I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.

2 I’ve kept my feet on the ground,
I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
my soul is a baby content.

3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
Hope now; hope always!

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