The Anti-Psalm

I am reading a book titled Seeing With New Eyes, by David Powlison. It was a gift, and it has sat upon my shelf waiting all this time for me to get around to cracking the spine. Well, the spine has been cracked wide - it's a beautifully written, joyful little book, chock full of encouragement, plain truth, and help for SINFUL PEOPLE like me, with SINFUL FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS like mine. The world is a broken place, and we are broken people, but as Christians we hold true hope - and I can't hear it often enough.

Probably my favorite little chapter in the Bible is Psalm 131. Or one of my favorites, anyway. It's a quiet little thing, tucked right there in the middle of my Bible, beckoning me to a lifestyle that seems too far outside my realm of experience to ever achieve personally.
And yet... I do hold out some hope, and I keep coming back to those words.

There is a WHOLE CHAPTER in this book dedicated to those 3 little verses! If I had bought the book, it would have been worth the price of the book to get that one chapter, it was that good for me to read.

Here's a taste of Mr. Powlison's book, as I took notes on it last week:

Psalm 131
"How to Become Peaceful Inside"

1. author: King David, who was a man after God's own heart. He is processing life as we were meant to (see v.3)

2. intention: NOT stoicisim, indifference, or "lowered expectations." NOT retreat or medicated buzz.
IT IS: learned composure, done within relationship; conscious, alert, chosen self-mastery by the grace of God.

Deliverance from Noise:
The "anti-psalm" describes where soul-noise comes from:

"Self,
My heart is proud (I am right in myself)
And my eyes are haughty (I look down on other people, as well)
And I chase after things too great and too difficult for me.

So I am noisy and restless inside;
it comes naturally,
Like a hungry infant fussing on its mother's lap.
Like a hungry infant, I am restless with my demands and worries.

I scatter my hopes onto anything and everybody all the time."

ouch.


To gain composure is to go through a weaning process...

Most of the noise in our souls is generated by our attempts to control the uncontrollable...
From your daily bread to your abilities and opportunites, these are gifts from God that you don't control...
How different things are when you pursue what you are called to pursue! You've discovered what you were made for. You have composure.

So.

How do you gain composure and quiet yourself? How do you make Psalm 131 your own?

1. Identify the "ladders" that pride erects, the ones that go nowhere:
Ladders of:
achievement
acquisition
appetite
avoidance
Prideful hearts and haughty eyes get to work when the ladders are climbed, even just a few rungs:
"They promise to take you someplace, but they collapse beneath the weight of your life."

2. Come to know Jesus.
He is the iconoclast, the ladder-toppler, the idol-breaker, the lie-piercer, the pride-smasher. He gives life, makes peace, gives joy, and makes you over.

"Seek Jesus, carrying your sin in your hands."

"Psalm 131 is HIS consciousness - a communicable attribute: quieted but not placid; composed but not detached. The principle is one of self-renewal: the demolition of pride, the creation of peace...

The soul-storms meet their Master: 'Be quiet. Be still.'
What is this? He commands the demons and they obey Him! Who is this, that even the wind and sea obey Him?'"
(see Mark 1:25-27, 4:39-41)


"O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption."
Psalm 130:7

"O Israel, hope in the Lord,
from this time forth and forever."
Psalm 131:3