Saying no to proud anxiety

Suppose I confide in you that I am anxious. What would you say? Suppose you said, ‘I am sorry you are anxious. That means you must be proud’.

I might be offended. But this is how Psalm 131 diagnoses it. Anxiety is rooted in pride. Charles Spurgeon says this beautiful Psalm is, ‘one of the shortest … to read but one of the longest to learn’.

If a spiritual listening device were switched on in our churches, it would pick up a lot of noise, disquiet, anxiety in our hearts — about our jobs, or joblessness, our pensions, elderly parents, difficult teenagers, a troubled marriage, the aftermath of divorce, our health, upcoming exams, whether we will get married, whether we can have children... The list is endless. Can you put your hand on your heart and say, ‘I have a quiet soul. There is no noisiness inside me. Even in the midst of pressures and busyness my heart is at peace and still’?

I live in the bustle of central London. It would be easy to think I could get a quiet heart by going away to the South Wales coast where I love to go on holiday. But a quiet heart is not created by quiet circumstances; it must come from a changed heart. That is our business in this Psalm. David gives us what someone has called a ‘show and tell’ on how to have a quiet heart.

The decision against pride (verse 1)

David tells us what he is not. He speaks of his heart, his eyes and his business. First, his heart is not proud. He is not full of himself. Second, his eyes are not haughty, looking up to the next promotion and sneering over his shoulder at others further down the ladder. And, third, his business: ‘I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me’. The word translated ‘wonderful’ means ‘difficult’; things I cannot understand and things beyond my power. It is usually used of what God does, his ‘wonders’ (the wonders of his love, the wonders of his word, the wonders of his rescue, and so on). When I make these things my business, I act as if I can do what God alone can do. I think of myself more highly than I ought (Romans12.3). I think of myself too high, of others too low, and of God too little.

Now here’s the logic: when I think like this, it all depends upon me. I will not delegate, for no one else can do things as well. I will not trust, for I am the omnicompetent one. I love to be in control. I am the captain of my soul, my life, my circumstances, my family, my career and my future. It all depends upon me.

And so my heart is troubled. Behind my proud façade of competence there is an anxious knowledge that the things I have ‘taken control of’ are not in my control at all. I begin parenthood thinking proudly that I will bring up my children the way I choose. And before long I discover that there are influences on them beyond my control, too wonderful for me. I act as though by exercise and diet I am in control of my health, and then I discover that my health is beyond my control; it is too wonderful for me.

So David says, I have turned away from pride. David didn’t always do that. Most of his successors didn’t do that at all. But the day came when a Son of David went through every moment of his life without a proud heart, without haughty eyes, willing to leave matters beyond his earthly control in the hands of his Father. One who could describe himself without risk of contradiction as ‘gentle and humble in heart’ (Matthew 11.29).

And so David makes the decision for peace (verse 2)

‘But I have stilled and quietened my soul.’ I have calmed, literally ‘levelled’, taken a bulldozer to my up and down soul, as Jesus told the uproar of waves to shut up and settle down. I have spoken to the tumultuous ambitions, desires, anxieties and boasts of my soul and told them to be quiet. This is no easy thing. It is, says Calvin, ‘as if his soul lay sweetly and peaceably in his bosom, undisturbed by inordinate desires’. This is not the peace of someone who has never known trouble, but a peace in the midst of troubles.

And so I become ‘like a weaned child with its mother’. The word translated ‘weaned’ may just mean ‘contented’ so we shouldn’t make too much of the precise word ‘weaned’. But the picture is clear. Here is a child snuggled against its mother in confident trust, leaving to the mother the things that are great matters beyond what the child can do, things that are too difficult. Like a toddler who runs off full of beans, but soon retreats back and asks to be carried.

What a change this makes to the anxieties of ambition. Before going to his first ministerial post in the Church of Scotland, Robert Murray McCheyne wrote: ‘It has always been my aim, and it is my prayer, to have no plans with regard to myself — well assured as I am that the place where the Saviour sees meet to place me, must ever be the best place for me’.

Now this is not a prospectus for wimps. I find my anxieties fall into two categories: things I can do something about and things I can’t. This Psalm is about the latter, not the former. It is not a recipe for passive quietism (‘Don’t struggle, just snuggle’). If I am anxious about an exam for which I have not revised, I need to get off my backside and revise.

But many of the things about which I am anxious are great matters too wonderful for me. I cannot control how my teenagers will respond to all the influences on their lives. I cannot control how they will react the first time someone offers them drugs at a party. It is beyond me to cure the Euro-zone economies, to stop myself getting all illnesses, or to preserve myself from bereavements.

My wife Carolyn often says to me when I share some pastoral concern and long to ‘solve the problem’, ‘Remember, there is only one Saviour of the world. And it isn’t you’. We need to learn this.

But there is one more thing, and this is where we come in.

The invitation to us (verse 3)

The American preacher Jonathan Edwards wrote to a young Christian: ‘Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ’. David invites us to do what he has done: ‘O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, both now and for evermore’. Put a spiritual stethoscope to your anxious heart and diagnose pride. Take the decision today against pride and for trust and peace. Will you do that?

Christopher Ash works for the Proclamation Trust as Director of the PT Cornhill Training Course (http://www.proctrust.org.uk).