Jan
17
2011
Quietness vs. prominence
I have calmed and quieted my soul. Psalm 131:2
How did David get to that quiet place before God? He forsook ambition. “My eyes are not raised too high,” he wrote. He was tempted. Otherwise, why say that? But he checked that impulse of ingratitude and overreaching and attention-seeking. He settled into the role and place God had assigned to him, because he trusted in God’s providential care.
“Like a weaned child is my soul within me.” No longer fretful, demanding, impatient, infantile, David’s heart came to rest with a sense of God’s plan, God’s nearness.
The upward glance at that higher place of visibility and recognition destroys quietness of heart. The one who has helped me the most here is Francis Schaeffer. His sermon, “No little people, no little places,” taught me to look by faith beyond my place, wherever it may be, into the greater battle raging in the heavenlies today, the real battle of our time that bears no necessary relation to the seeming prominence or obscurity of the soldiers involved, and trust that the Lord of hosts is deploying me most effectively right where I am, moment by moment. Human appearances can be false. Divine strategies are unfailing.
Unless I am “extruded” (Schaeffer’s wonderful word) into the higher place by the force of God’s own hand, my life counts less than before, not more, no matter how impressive things may appear.
Quietness of heart before God is more powerful than prominence of position among men.