131

O heart, be not proud and lifted up.  O eyes, be not high ad haughty and arrogant.  Don’t live on the oxygen of approval, affirmation, and accomplishment.

Instead, still and quiet your soul like a weaned child in the loving embrace of its mother.  Breathe me in.  Let me be the only air you need.  Stop trying to suck it out of everyone else, for that is what it means to be weaned.  Only then will you be free.

And all of it depends on me, not on you.  Always remember that.

What's above is a little adaptation of Psalm 131 from my time with God this morning.  It's a psalm I have been praying every Saturday for years now.  And every time I pray it, I wonder if I'm making any progress in the "weaned life."  There is still so much in me that I need to be weaned of.  I need to be weaned of the need for a certain response from others, weaned of the need to impress and be affirmed, weaned of my slavery to what others think and say about me, weaned of my captivity to results and performance.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  But, as the psalm says, my only hope for this weaning is in God.  So, I will keep praying and keep wrestling and keep trying and keep hoping that one day "stilled and quieted" might actually be the state of my heart and soul.