Like a Weaned Child

I preach a few days after my sabbatical ends at the end of August. I was tempted to prepare this sermon before my sabbatical started, but I figured that I’d find something to preach during my sabbatical. I was right.

The emerging theme from my sabbatical so far has been Psalm 131.

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.

Before my sabbatical started, I was anything but what David describes in this passage. I’d begun to notice a restlessness and a lack of resiliency in my life.

My sabbatical has been a process of rediscovering what David describes in this simple psalm: learning humility and simplicity, and finding rest and contentment with the Lord.

I love the picture of a weaned child with its mother. A weaned child is not there for what he or she can get from the relationship, but for the joy of the relationship itself. I’ve begun to rediscover this with God. I’ve needed it.

There’s been lots happening on my sabbatical, but at this heart of it is this psalm. I hope to learn its lessons even better in the month or so I have left.