Like A Child

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can spend a lot of years trying to understand things too high for you — making sense of what God is doing, who you are supposed to become, why the stretch has been what it is — and end up exhausted from holding questions you cannot answer. You are not faithless. You are tired of trying to think your way to peace. Quiet yourself like a weaned child — past the demanding crying for milk, settled in your mother's arms because being near is enough.

This is one of the shortest of these pilgrim prayers, and the simplicity is the message. "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me." That is the prayer of someone who has stopped trying to figure out what is above his pay grade. Then the image that gives the prayer its weight: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother; my soul is even as a weaned child." The nursing child cries to be fed; the weaned child has learned to be near the mother for the sake of nearness, not for the milk. That is the maturity he is naming. The crying for milk is fine; it is just younger. The older trust does not demand to be fed to stay close. It is a head pressed against a parent's chest, breathing slower because the breathing nearby is steady. The close is the corporate reach: "Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever." Quietness in the individual becomes hope in the people. Three verses. One image. A heart that has stopped grasping for what it cannot reach, and has learned that being near is enough.

• Right now, breathe out and stop trying to figure out the thing that has been keeping your mind running — and pray: "My soul is even as a weaned child." • Write this down: "What 'great matter' have I been exercising myself in that is actually too high for me?" • Repeat this line when your mind starts grasping again: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother."

Stop. Breathe. Let the picture of a weaned child settled near its mother quiet the demanding for answers, then tell Him exactly where you want to be quieted — out loud if you can.

God, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty — at least, that is who I want to be. Forgive me for exercising myself in great matters and in things too high for me. Quiet me like a weaned child, settled near You for the sake of being near You — not for what You give. Let Israel hope in You from henceforth and for ever — and let me be one of the quieted ones in that hope. Be the nearness; my soul has been demanding answers when it should have been resting in You. You're still my Shepherd.

My soul is even as a weaned child.