Intro

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Quiet gets your attention, doesn’t it? We notice silence. We notice it, I think, because it is so rare. And often this silence is unsettling.

Some of you may have heard of the recent psychology study focusing on people’s ability to be alone with their thoughts in silence. People almost always say life is too busy, too crazy, but in this study, when they were asked just to sit quietly in a room for between 6 to 15 minutes, more than half said they found the experience unpleasant. In a follow up study, people were given the option of just sitting quietly or, if they wanted, they could painfully shock themselves, and 2/3 of the men in the study chose to shock themselves, sometimes repeatedly, rather than just sitting quietly for 10 minutes. 

We struggle to be alone with our thoughts, don’t we? We struggle with quiet. I think that’s part of the reason we have a hard time with prayer. Quiet can be hard, it can be unsettling.

I suspect one of the reasons some of us don’t like silence outside of us is because there is so much noise within us. 

Blaise Pascal many centuries ago spoke of this very thing. He wrote, Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. ..There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair. Quiet, he says, is painful, because it causes us to notice the noise going on within our heart.

Think of all the noise you have going on inside of you. 

• There’s the noise of things we’re afraid to forget: Do I have a dentist’s appointment today? Did I leave the oven on? When is that payment due? 

• The noise of fear and worry. Do I have enough in my savings? Are my kids doing okay? What do people think of me right now? 

• The noise of anger: I can’t believe he did that to me. I’ll show him. I’m never forgiving that.

We have a lot of noise going on within, don’t we? And it’s not having a good effect on us. How often do you find yourself only partly present in a moment? You’re talking with your children but also thinking about work; you’re walking outdoors, but all you can think of is what your friend said about you. Maybe even right now, you’re only partly here because of other thoughts that are occupying your attention. There is so much noise.

And I don’t know anyone who wants to be that way. 

Have you ever met someone who you can just tell is quiet inside? Perhaps some of you know what I mean; you know someone who doesn’t seem to get ruffled by events, who doesn’t feel the need to fill silence with words and explanations, a person who feels calm and present in whatever situation. They seem to have found a kind of harmony with who they are, and with how they relate to this world.  

I would like to become more like that. Wouldn’t you? Don’t you wish you could be present in every moment and enjoy it for what it is, to be able to be comfortably at rest in moments of quiet? Don’t you desire a quieted soul? I do.

And that, our Psalm is telling us, is where God is taking us.

In these last three weeks we’ve been considering Psalms of Ascent, the God-given mix-tape meant to help move us forward along the journey he has set out for us, 15 Psalms divided into sets with three themes. Two weeks ago we considered one of songs about the “problem,” expressing the desire for change. Last week we looked at a “pathway” song, meant to help us to learn to depend on God as the way we deal with difficulties. This morning, we look at one of the “purpose” Psalms. The third psalm in every triad is meant to give us a vision of where God is taking us—of what the city of redemption, Zion, is like. Other purpose Psalms speak of the peace of Zion, the security of Zion, the prosperity of Zion, and, most importantly, that in Zion we have fellowship with God. All of these are meant to help us understand, “This is how things should be. This is where we are going.” This morning’s Psalm focuses on the quiet of Zion.

Last week’s song came in the midst of emotional noise—a cry when you feel like you’re drowning, when it seems like the waves are high and the fear is great. Here is a quiet Psalm, about a quieted self. Verse 2: “I have calmed and quieted my soul.” The two words used here are literally flattened and made still. Lake Michigan on a stormy day is loud and noisy, with waves many feet high, crashing against the shore. But sometimes, when there is no wind, the same lake can almost seem like glass; the water has been flattened; it is silent. This is what has happened in the soul of the one who is singing. “My soul is still.”

You and I were meant to experience this kind of internal harmony.  And for all who are willing to trust this God, this is where God is leading you. God is committed to bringing you this internal quiet.

If you read this Psalm carefully, you’ll notice that the man who wrote this, David, was not just someone who was especially zen, type B, who just naturally didn’t get flustered. No, notice what he writes “I have CALMED and QUIETED my soul.” To come to this place, he had to grow and mature. He has experienced a transformation. And what happened, he says, is kind of like having been weaned.

“Like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul with me.” When our kids were infants, they would do a funny thing. Whenever they woke from their nap and it was time for them to eat—and especially when Jennifer was getting ready to feed them, they would become frantic. It didn’t matter how many times before they had woken up and been brought to their mom and were given plenty of food; it didn’t matter how much Jennifer had shown them how much she loved them and would take care of them—even still it was as if they were worried that this time, this time they weren’t going to get the food they longed for. 

But as they got older, they were weaned, and through that process, they kind of learned to chill out. Even if they got a little hungry, as long as Mom was near, they came to understand they didn’t really worry. They knew she would take care of them. They could be quiet.

That, David says, is what has happened to me. He undergone a change, so that now he no longer is frantic when he feels desire; he doesn’t panic when there’s a problem without an immediate solution—he has been weaned, he has been changed so that even in uncomfortable moments of waiting, he can be quiet.

And this is a song we are meant to learn to sing with him. We are invited to allow God to wean us and to come to understand what it means to calm and quiet our souls so that can gradually become within like the stillest of lakes, our souls like a child sucking his thumb on his mother’s lap. Isn’t that what you want?

So how do we become like this? This song describes for us two changes involved in this process. We are weaned as we embrace our creatureliness and as we fix our attention on our God.

Embracing our Creatureliness

This is the point of verse 2. “My heart ,” he says, “is  not lifted up, and my eyes are not raised too high.” Both of these phrases have the idea of arrogance, of looking down on others. He is saying that he has stopped thinking more highly of himself than he should, as if he is somehow above what he truly is. 

Similarly, he says, “I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” That is, “I do not spend my energy on things that are beyond my capacity and outside of my control. I have stopped pursuing impossibilities.”

The pathway to quiet comes in accepting what we are as human creatures, with all of our limitations.   

Which, I would suggest, is the very opposite of what we are encouraged to do in our society. Consider for a moment the progression of the last 60 years.

• One of the themes of the 60’s and 70’s was that limits were bad and something we needed to cast off. We should be allowed to do and be whatever we want. Break the rules. Enjoy free love. Expand your mind with drugs. No limits!

• And then in the 80’s and 90’s, having cast off our limits, we told ourselves that we are unlimited. Because of science and the end of the old traditions, I have the freedom and the potential. If I follow my heart and trust in myself, I can be and do whatever I want.  

• But now in the past 2 decades, it’s turned from a promise into a prison sentence: You must be more than human; you must not live within your limits. You need to work and achieve beyond your capacity. No rest if you’re at home—you must still be reachable. When it comes to the issues in the world, make sure you are always aware of whatever the most recent controversy is and respond to all of them, because you have no limits. And don’t tie yourself down to anything, anything that will somehow limit you, like family or institutions.

From the belief we can be something superhuman, to trying to be superhuman, to being enslaved to superhuman expectations, in just three generations.

And it’s exhausting. When we think about ourselves falsely, we have a sense of entitlement that gets disappointed. We have false expectations of what we can accomplish, and then get angry at ourselves when we fail. And we know deep down that we’re not what we pretend to be. And so in our insecurity, we compare ourselves to others; we show our insecurities by being petty; we look for approval. This is always how it’s been; 1600 years ago the preacher John Chrysostom said, “Men who are in love with applause have their spirits starved not only when they are blamed offhand, but even when they fail to be constantly praised.” Pride is tiring, it is noisy within. 

And do you realize how much emotional energy you spend on things in your life that you really have no control over? Do you recognize how much noise that produces? I like what David Powlison says about this, “Even the small, everyday things that everyone races after are, in fact, beyond us… What happens when you attempt to control another person’s attitude and choices to bend them to your will? You set yourself up for all sorts of ugly things. Despair or rage, anxiety or short-lived euphoria, suspicion or manipulation. What happens when you attempt to ensure that you will not get sick and die? You become obsessed with diet and exercise, or litigious towards doctors, or plagued with fear that any nagging pain might be the big one that finally gets you. What happens when you are obsessed with getting people to like you? You become flirtatious or artificial, a coward or a deceiver, a chameleon or a recluse.” When we occupy ourselves with what is outside of our control, we are filled with noise. 

When you deny or ignore basic reality, you will never find harmony with yourself or this world, because you’re living in denial. If you try to hold on to the idea that you can be supremely important, that you are in control, your heart will always be a tempestuous storm of madness and lies. Like a panicky infant, you will always think that it’s up to you—that you need to make a fuss or you will never be happy.

You will only find the pathway to quiet when you allow yourself to be weaned of that foolishness. Here’s a really important truth to consider. You and I are creatures. You and I have limits. Quiet comes in accepting that you and I are human beings, creatures with limits that we are meant to live within. In fact, you will learn quiet not just by accepting this, but by embracing this. By seeing that your limits aren’t bad or something to be ashamed of. Your limits are good, they are a gift. Limits just simply mean that you aren’t God. And our limits are designed to help turn us toward the one we most deeply need and who will most fill us with joy, and that is God. 

Attention toward God

Which brings us to the second part what it looks like to be weaned so that we learn to quiet our souls. Our souls become quiet and stilled as we turn our attention toward God. 

To state the obvious, this morning as you leave church, you won’t be able just to flick a switch and say, “I will no longer think too highly of myself and be controlling; I will accept my limits!” There’s a reason why an infant panics whenever he or she is hungry. Because that child knows at a visceral level that if they don’t get fed, it will be a real problem. And in the same way, we have tried to become more than we are because we’re afraid. We know there are all sorts of unpleasant possibilities: we can get hurt, be lonely, disappointed, grieve, die. As kind of a protective measure, we try to make ourselves into people who can control that and overcome those things on our own, when of course we can’t. 

We will only be able to embrace our creatureliness when we come to find a different source of security than ourselves; a different refuge for us to go when we are afraid. When our attention is turned elsewhere.

There’s a subtle thing this Psalm does right at the very beginning. “O LORD,” it begins—the all caps in English signals to us that in Hebrew, this is the word Yahweh, the personal name for God. This song is personally directed toward God. It’s a kind of prayer. But it’s not a typical prayer: it doesn’t ask God for help. It doesn’t thank God for what he has done. All it does is point our attention on God. In addressing him by name, we turn our gaze to him and who he is. He is YAHWEH, and he is near. To put it in New Testament terms, he is God the Father who gave his Son, he is Jesus, he laid down his life for us, he is the Spirit who draws intimately near to us to give us life. That is who we are looking at when we say, “O LORD.” And it is in this very act of having our attention fixed upon our beautiful, loving Trinitarian God who is present with us, even now, that the waters become still.

Consider again the central image in verse 2. I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother. The reason a sleepy 3 year-old girl can sit quietly sucking her thumb as she waits for food is that she knows her mom and she knows her mom is near, and so she is secure.

As you come to know the name of the LORD, and who he is, And as you turn your heart toward him in such a way that his presence in your life becomes an ongoing and real thing, you will find yourself letting go of the lie, letting go of the need to be in control. Because the reality is that the LORD who is himself peace, is actually much more committed to your joy and wholeness than you are, and he is much, much better at it than you. The LORD is God, and he is extraordinarily good.

Have you noticed how often it is the case that the object our attention shapes what is going on inside of us? If we focus on noisy things, like ambition, we will be noisy on the inside. But if we focus on what is quiet, then we too will experience quiet. Isn’t that part of the reason many of us like walking along the beach? As we look at the water, the waves rolling in, there is a calm, a quiet without that brings about a calm within. 

And there is nothing more calm, more peaceful, more without noise than God himself. With God there is no worry or self-doubt. God is who he is, he does not change. Nothing makes God afraid, nothing takes away his joy. The more we turn our attention toward God, the more we become like this.

“O Israel,” verse 3 says, “hope in Yahweh, from this time forth and forevermore.” It is an invitation to us, and it is where what is described in verse 2 becomes possible. I have calmed and quieted my soul, how? I have turned my heart toward the Lord and recognized that he is near. I have become like a weaned child with his mom, how? I have come to see that I am entirely secure with God being near, and I can be at rest knowing him. Israel, people of God, it says in the final verse, hope in the Lord. For that is how you too can find quiet. 

We are weaned, we learn quiet, as we embrace our creatureliness and we turn our attention toward God. Really, that is how to become human. Once you understand this, you’ll begin to understand more clearly why we do so much of what we do as Christians. Why is it so important for us ask God for help and confess our sins to him? It’s to help us to live into our limitations. Why during the week do we seek to actively listen to God by meditating on his word? Why do we take time to think through the previous day and consider where God was and how he has acted toward us? It’s to develop an ongoing attention to God being near. Likewise, when we come together and depend on each other in church, and praise God together, and confess our sins together and eat of the Lord’s Supper together, it’s all to do the same: to learn and embody the reality that we are God’s creatures, and our loving God is near and our refuge. This is how we are being weaned. This is how we become quiet.

We mentioned earlier about how some of us know a person who seems quiet. If you want a clear picture of what this looks like in this world, then simply consider Jesus, who sang this Psalm before we did. There was never a person who was more at peace with himself than Jesus—who was less defensive, less flustered than him. Even as he was mocked and spat upon and beaten, he remained silent. He knew who he was, and he knew his God was near. 

Now, if we consider how Jesus lived on this world, we will also see that this kind of quiet is not even something he could fully experience this side of the resurrection. As he faced the cross, he spoke to his disciples of how his soul was deeply troubled; the waves were crashing around him. Because we live in a world that is disordered, filled with wrong and grief. We’re in a world where our very bodies respond in panic before we even have a chance to think. The calm that David describes here is what we will one day experience, but it is not yet completely ours. Zion still lies in the future. We are still marching. 

And yet we can move toward that calm. If you consider Jesus at the garden, what does he do? He turns to his God, remembering who he is, “Abba, Father, all things are possible with you.” And even as he brings his desire, he names his limits, “Not what I will, but what you will.” And after praying three times, he moves steadily, courageously, to the cross. For he has quieted his soul. 

And this is where God is taking you and me. He invites us to sing this song with David, with Jesus. To move toward quiet, peace, wholeness, by embracing what we are and turning toward God.

I invite you to join me in doing that now.