My Heart is Not Lifted Up

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“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.”

Psalm 131:1-2

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A lot has happened in the past few weeks. My heart has felt a little cluttered and distracted with pondering this being my last year in West Africa, complicated situations my friends are in, and more.

It’s one of those times where things aren’t really overwhelming or upsetting…just odd. Like your heart is in the right place but your mind can’t settle there.

I’ve been mulling over this for a couple days, but sometimes thinking about trying to still your soul only unsettles it more. So, I just waited.

Then, I woke up this morning to a new text from a tired friend and I shared with her the same words that I had shared with another friend. In fact, I have shared the same words with nearly every one of my friends in the past month.

And as I typed out the short, uncomplicated phrase, I realized that it was exactly what God has been whispering to my heart: when you aren’t thinking of Me…I am still thinking of you.

When You Cannot Think of God

I recently finished reading In God’s Underground by Richard Wurmbrand. For those of you who don’t recognize the name, Richard Wurmbrand was a pastor who was imprisoned, and tortured, for his faith while under a Communist government in Romania. He is also the founder of the Voice of the Martyrs.

In chapter 23 of the book, he details being put in the carcer – a cupboard filled with sharp spikes that pierced the skin whenever the prisoner moved. He explained that the only way to avoid being pierced was to stand perfectly still. However, Wurmbrand was in the carcer for two days and the hours of standing in the same position led to severe pain and swelling in his legs.

He writes the following:

I tried to keep my mind on Christ’s sufferings, but my own were too strong. Then I remembered [a time when my young son] asked, “What shall I do, Daddy? I’m bored.” I said, “Think about God, Mihai!” He replied, “Why should I think about Him? I’ve only a small head. He has a great big head, so He ought to think about me.” So now I told myself, “Don’t try to think about God. Don’t think at all”

– Richard Wurmbrand, In God’s Underground (p. 60-61).

I do not wish, in any way, to compare the mild sufferings of American believers to the sufferings of worldwide martyrs and those faithful Christians who have endured much persecution for their fire-refined faith.

However, I can’t help noticing how true the words ring.

Even without spiritual oppression or persecution, our minds are so easily distracted. And in this “cluttering” of thoughts, we think and think and think. We think about how to declutter the thoughts, we think about how we should think about God, we think about stilling our minds…

And sometimes, what we really need…is to not think.

To let God do the thinking.

A Calm and Quiet Soul

One of the oddest Bible passages I’ve ever come across is Psalm 131.

The psalmist writes,

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.

– Psalm 131

That’s the whole chapter. Just three verses talking about trusting instead of knowing, resting instead of running, accepting instead of thinking.

One time, while I was working at a daycare, one of my favorite littles (yes, I had favorites – shh) crawled into my lap and started crying. I hugged him for a minute, but when I asked him what was wrong, he said he didn’t know. First, I asked if he missed his mommy, he said no. Then, I asked if he was having friendship troubles, he said no. He didn’t know why he was sad, he just knew he needed a hug and that I would give him one.

I think that’s how our relationship with God is supposed to be.

The psalmist isn’t saying we shouldn’t ever think about God. Our thoughts should be truly devoted to Him. He’s just saying, sometimes we get so caught up in thinking about things – trying to rationalize why our minds are cluttered, to pinpoint all the ways we could be trusting Him better – when we just need to let Him hold us in the quiet for a bit.

My favorite part about this is that the more I think about God’s thoughts towards me, the more I learn how to think of Him. Because the more I rest in the simplicity of His sufficiency, the better I see the heart of His character.

Sometimes we just need to calm and quiet our soul: to rest in the God who thinks of us.

The God Who Thinks of Us, Resurrects our Sight

At another point in Wurmbrand’s book, he details a time of despair and hopelessness. He writes,

…in time I came to believe what they told us for all those months. Christianity was dead. […] Then I thought of Mary Magdalene […] I remembered how she was faithful to Christ even when He cried on the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And when He was a corpse in the tomb, she wept nearby and waited until He arose. So when I believed at last that Christianity was dead, I said, “Even so, I will believe in it, and I will weep at its tomb until it arises again, as it surely will.

– Richard Wurmbrand, In God’s Underground (p. 264)

Christianity is never dead. Its Author is too alive and its truths are too redeeming. Yet, there are times where our minds are too cluttered to notice how absolutely alive it is.

There are seasons of still and silence.

I think that is where the “quieting and calming” happen most deeply. Because our souls long to fill silence with noise and still with movement. It is unnatural to simply rest.

But in the still and in the silence, He is whispering His thoughts to us. If your sight is buried, the loveliest place to be sitting is outside its tomb. Because one day, maybe quietly, maybe brightly – maybe joyfully, maybe softly – God will resurrect the night and the dark will turn to light.

The God who thinks of us will never cease to resurrect our sight, so long as we are waiting for His hands to heal our eyes.

And only He can.

So, instead of trying to think too much about how to resurrect it ourselves, instead of repeating doctrines and truths to a blank wall in your mind, maybe what we need is to just stop.

Rest.

Quiet and calm your soul. Do not try to think. And, instead, fall into the arms of the God who thinks of you.