For a couple of days now I have been pondering this statement "but I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother..." I have been asking myself what this really looks like and what does it mean.
Apparently, the usual age for weaning a child during the period in which David lived was about the age of four or five. We can imagine how difficult it would be for the child, and the parent, when that happened. The child would regard it as a crisis, but once it was over, he would enjoy the new level at which he was living. Similarly, David has been through a crisis in which he was prevented from attaining a position. Yet, although he had been denied this place, he had gained something far more important which was quiet confidence in the One who had denied him the place. David realized that it was the Lord who had prevented him from achieving a particular role at that time. It was a crisis, perhaps with disappointment initially, but the comfort he received from God made up for what he had not been given. And he had developed in humility.
It is God's intention that every one of us increase in humility. Over and over the Bible draws us to the need for humility in our lives. God used things like "Paul’s thorn in the flesh." He asked that it be taken away, and God said no. The thorn was given to Paul to keep him from being exalted above measure, in other words to keep him humble. It was a crisis, but Paul accepted the denial. Instead of rebelling against God, Paul gives a cry of a weaned soul when he says, ‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’ (2 Cor. 12:9).
Paul wrote many astounding statements in his letters. One of the most amazing is a statement he wrote in his final letter, after he had been a Christian for over three decades. In writing to Timothy, Paul describes himself as ‘the chief of sinners’. But he writes this humble description from the position of a ‘weaned child’ who has realized that ‘the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 1:14).
The obvious benefit of such experiences is Christlikeness. The humility of Jesus is a prominent feature of his beautiful character. It becomes ours as we spend time with him and he weans us from our previous stage in the spiritual life. ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matt. 11:28-20). At times, these periods of learning come after we have been denied something by God.
When a person is developing in the spiritual life, one sign of it is that he thinks less of his own needs and more of the needs of Christ’s church. This is what David expresses in verse 3: ‘O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.’ He says to them, ‘I have discovered that the Lord guides my life, sometimes giving me this and at other times denying me that; yet he himself comes and comforts me when I trust in him, when I lie by faith in his arms, strengthened in his grace even although he has denied me in the meantime something that I expected.’ This understanding only comes by experience. David, having tasted the faithfulness and the consolations of God, exhorts others to also hope in the Lord. When we find such sentiments in our hearts, we can conclude that we are being weaned.
C. H. Spurgeon said of this psalm: ‘It is one of the shortest Psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn. It speaks of a young child, but it contains the experience of a man in Christ. Lowliness and humility are here seen in connection with a sanctified heart, a will subdued to the mind of God, and a hope looking to the Lord alone happy is the man who can without falsehood use these words as his own; for he wears about him the likeness of his Lord, who said, “I am meek and lowly in heart.”’
Some thoughts gleaned from Scotish Pastor Malcom Maclean
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