The author of our psalm professes to be humble, but he’s not making that claim to other people. He’s not trying to earn other people’s trust–as Uriah Heep was–he’s not trying to impress us with his humility. He’s professing his humility to God, who knows his heart: “My heart is not proud, O Lord.” It’s easy to get the wrong idea about humility, which is why people like Uriah Heep so often succeed in deceiving us. Uriah Heep is obsessed with himself. He’s always talking about his humility, telling everyone “I am ever so `umble.” The psalmist’s focus is not on himself. He’s humble because he knows who God is and has seen himself as a creature before the One who created him. That’s what humility is. It has nothing to do with trying to see ourselves as nobodies, trying to persuade ourselves that we really don’t have any gifts, that we really don’t have anything to offer in the church. Humility is simply seeing ourselves as we are, being rid of our illusions, seeing ourselves more truly as God sees us. It means seeing ourselves as finite, dependent creatures in the hands of an infinite Creator. As one writer describes it: “Humility is the truth about ourselves, the whole truth–about our weaknesses, our failures, our history, our virtues, our gifts. Once we are truthful about ourselves before God and others, we can deal gently with others who are afraid to face the truth about themselves or who fancy themselves our competitors. Christ humbled himself out of compassion; out of humility grows our compassion for one another” (Hugh Feiss, Essential Monastic Wisdom, pp. 90-91). Humility is the truth about ourselves.
The psalmist is not at all like Uriah Heep. Because he sees the truth about himself, he’s not puffed up with pride. That’s the claim he makes in verse 1: “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty.” The word “heart,” in Scripture, usually refers to the center of our being, the thing that determines our character. For example, in Ezekiel, God promises: “When the people return to their homeland, they will remove every trace of their detestable idol worship. And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their hearts of stone and give them tender hearts instead, so they will obey my laws and regulations” (11:18-20, NLT). The problem with Israel, God says, is that they have “hearts of stone.” They’re unrepentant, unwilling to obey. So He promises to give them tender hearts, hearts that are willing to submit to His will. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.” He’s not talking here about doing aerobics to improve our cardio-vascular fitness. He’s saying that we need to make sure our priorities are in order, that God is at the center of our being. What he’s saying is really the same thing as this from Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today.” (Deut. 6:4-6, NLT). So, when the psalmist says that his heart is not proud, he’s saying that he is not ruled by pride. Proud self-sufficiency is not the thing that is determining the direction of his life.
When our hearts are full of pride, we’ve forgotten who we are. We’ve forgotten that we are creatures, dependent on our creator. This sort of outlook is epitomized in a poem by William Ernest Henley. He had recently had a foot amputated because of a tubercular infection, and had been in the Edinburgh Infirmary from 1873-1875. As he was recovering, he wrote “Invictus,” his most famous poem:
“Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
Often suffering humbles us, because we see how frail and needy we are. But Henley had survived, and it filled him with pride. If he had overcome this, he thought, nothing could conquer him. He was unconquerable, the master of his own fate. This is the temptation Eve faced in the garden: “God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil” (Genesis 3:5, NLT). “You will become just like God.” Or, “you will become the master of your fate, the captain of your soul.” When we begin thinking in this way, we’ve forgotten who we are and who God is. The psalmist comes before God recognizing that he is dependent on Him for his next breath, that all he has comes to him as a gift from God’s hand. He recognizes that “in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28, NLT). And because he’s seen the truth about himself, the psalmist also doesn’t look down on others: “my eyes are not haughty.”
But what does he mean by the words, “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me?” When I was a young Christian I worshiped among people who thought intellectual activity was in conflict with real faith. And when I was growing up I often heard from people who despised the kind of learning that comes from books. Is that what the psalmist is advocating. Is he the sort of person who despises theology and only wants to hear “practical messages?” In many evangelical churches today, we hear that theology isn’t important, that what really matters are practical truths about how to live in the world (how to have a successful marriage, how to parent, how to stay out of debt, etc.). But the psalmist is not saying that sort of thing. This psalm is part of the whole revelation of Scripture, which is full of truth about who God is and how He deals with His people. Scripture tells us many things about God–theological truths–and those things are meant to build our faith and to help us worship.
But there are some things we can’t know, simply because we’re finite creatures. Deuteronomy 29:29 says: “There are secret things that belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we may obey these words of the law” (NLT). The psalmist is saying that he doesn’t try to pry into these things that belong to God alone, that are beyond our grasp. What are some of these things? Surely the question of when Christ is returning is one of those subjects. Jesus said clearly “The Father sets those dates... and they are not for you to know” (Acts 1:7, NLT). Whenever we hear people speculating about when Christ is going to return, we need to know that they are concerning themselves with “great matters, or things too wonderful” for them. We should immediately write off what they’re saying. They’re speaking without authority, no matter how much study they’ve done on the matter.
But there are other areas of mystery in Scripture. It shouldn’t surprise us that an infinite God is beyond our comprehension. The Bible clearly asserts God’s absolute sovereignty over His creation, and at the same time it clearly assumes that we have the ability to make real choices that affect our eternal well-being. Jesus said “you did not choose me, but I chose you,” and the doctrines of election and predestination weren’t invented by John Calvin (or Augustine). These things are there in the Bible. But at the same time there are invitations like this one: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Paul, who taught most clearly about election, also said God “wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). We don’t know how to reconcile these truths. The only safe course is to faithfully assert both things and confess that we’re out of our depth. Paul models the right attitude at the end of Romans 11. After his discussion of election in chapters 9-11, in the light of all the difficult things he’s been saying, Paul doesn’t attempt to explain God’s ways. He concludes in worship: “Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor? And who could ever give him so much that he would have to pay it back? For everything comes from him, everything exists by his power and is intended for his glory. To him be glory evermore. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36, NLT).
The psalmist is not saying that he doesn’t exercise his mind about the things of God. He’s saying that he accepts the limits God has placed upon his mind. And he trusts God with those things he doesn’t understand. Job got into trouble because his grief caused him to doubt God’s goodness. At the end of the book, he says: “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3). Joni Eareckson said: “After studying Job I saw that God was not accountable to me, but that I was accountable to God” (quoted by Lane Adams, “Intellectual Clarification Calls for Devotional Illumination,” at the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy). The psalmist understands that he is accountable to God and that there are mysteries beyond his comprehension. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
He sees the truth about himself. But it hasn’t come naturally to him. Some people are unassuming by nature. They don’t assert themselves or try to impose their will on others. That’s just the personality they were given, and it really has nothing to do with humility. The psalmist doesn’t seem to be that sort of person. He says: “I have stilled and quieted my soul.” He’s exercised some diligence to accomplish this. His soul hasn’t always been in that condition. Here’s what one commentator says about him: “This psalm was written... by a hot-blooded man. Once he had a heart that craved wealth, luxury and pleasure, eyes that were set on power and station, and a mind that busied itself with matters beyond its ability to understand. He was in consequence full of unrest, for pride, envy and pretentiousness gave him no peace. But now all this has been changed” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 4, pp. 682-83). The psalmist isn’t describing his personality in this psalm. He’s testifying to the fruit of God’s grace in his life.
By diligently stilling and quieting his soul before God, he’s become like a “weaned child with its mother.” “I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content” (The Message). He’s at rest in God’s presence, in contrast to those who persist in rebelling against Him: “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked’” (Isaiah 57:20-21). But there’s more than this. “The Christian is ‘not like an infant crying loudly for his mother’s breast, but like a weaned child that quietly rests by his mother’s side, happy in being with her.... No desire now comes between him and his God; for he is sure that God knows what he needs before he asks him. And just as the child gradually breaks off the habit of regarding his mother only as means of satisfying his own desires and learns to love her for her own sake, so the worshipper after a struggle has reached an attitude of mind in which he desires God for himself and not as a means of fulfillment of his own wishes. His life’s centre of gravity has shifted. He now rests no longer in himself but in God’” (Arthur Weiser, quoted by Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 151). As he’s persisted in cultivating a quiet heart before God, he’s learned to rest in Him “like a weaned child with its mother.”
Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, went through a crisis in his ministry. He was a very conscientious leader, and he felt the weight of his responsibilities. As missionaries in various parts of China began to suffer persecution, he felt responsible for their sufferings, and there was an increasing lack of funds to carry on the work. He reached a point where his spiritual life wasn’t able to keep up with the strain and stress he was under (Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, J. Hudson Taylor, p.211). He was overwhelmed with the burden of the ministry God had given him, and he was in despair. But then, God gave him a new realization of the sufficiency of Christ in all things. Here’s what he said, in a letter to his sister: “I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient” (p. 214). His favorite hymn became “Jesus, I am Resting, Resting.” The burden of the work was no longer his, and the ministry of the China Inland Mission was no longer his work. He had humbled himself before God, had accepted his own limitations, and had become “like a weaned child with its mother.” He was able to rest in God, rather than being dependent on his own efforts.
After this experience, Taylor began exhorting others to rest in the sufficiency of Christ. And that’s what the psalmist does. He exhorts his fellow-pilgrims “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.” His fresh realization of God’s grace overflows with blessing for others. I’ve mentioned meeting a 92-year-old missionary, A.R. Fromman, when I was working in India early in 1978. He had been working in India for 65 years when I met him. He and his wife had retired and returned to the West, but after two years they felt certain that God was calling them back to India, so they moved to a remote district in Madhya Pradesh, where there were no other missionaries. They lived in a tent for two years (they were in their late 60's at this point), until they were able to build a mud hut, where they continued to live for more than 20 years. His wife had died the year before, and he had no plans to leave India again. He was, without any doubt, the most godly man I’ve ever met. I and another American on the team had the privilege of eating breakfast with him each morning for two weeks. And while we were eating our breakfast, his would get cold as he ministered to us. He poured out his heart to us about God’s faithfulness and sufficiency, and about all the ways they had experienced His help over the years. We commented once on the fact that his breakfast was growing cold, and he said something like “God has given me so much, I have a responsibility to share it.” God had blessed him, over a very long lifetime, and he wanted to share that blessing with us. And the brief time I spent with him all those years ago continues to impact me today. When God blesses us, we have a responsibility to share that blessing with others. The psalmist has humbled himself in the Lord’s presence, has stilled and quieted his soul so that he is like a weaned child with its mother. He’s experienced God’s sufficiency and grace, and it’s not enough that he himself has put his hope in the Lord. It’s not enough that he feels better. He wants his fellow pilgrims to know that God is sufficient for all their needs. He wants them also to humble themselves before God’s mighty hand.
Humility is seeing ourselves as we are, being rid of our illusions and seeing ourselves as God sees us. How do we go about cultivating this kind of awareness? We don’t learn humility by expending a great effort to become humble, lowly people. All that does is make us more aware of ourselves, more self-absorbed. If we begin to make any progress at all in that direction, we’ll only become proud of our supposed humility. Trying to become humble by a direct effort is self defeating. It doesn’t help much to tell ourselves what horrible people we are either. We may be telling ourselves some things that are true, but we’re still absorbed with ourselves.
The great thing about the psalmist is not his lack of pride and haughtiness. The great thing is that he is absorbed with God, rather than with himself. The way to learn humility is to absorb ourselves with God, to become more aware of who He is. The more we know of God, the more we’ll be humbled. When we see God as He is, we don’t need to expend any effort at cultivating humility. So, the way to become more humble is to cultivate an awareness of God.
We cultivate an awareness of God by learning more about Him and by spending time in His presence. Read God’s Word, paying special attention to the ways God reveals Himself there. Ask yourself, as you’re reading, “what does this passage, or story, tell about what God is like and how He deals with His people?” And then respond in prayer, thanking Him for the things you’ve observed in His Word. Books like Knowing God, by J.I. Packer, or The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer, can be a real help in learning more about God. And reading through a hymnal is a good practice, especially if you also use it for prayer and worship. The object is not just to learn more information about God, but to understand Him better and then to worship Him on the basis of what we’ve learned.
Use this psalm as part of your prayer life, and ask God to make these things a reality in your life. I’ve been recommending this practice of praying the Psalms, but maybe you’ve tried it and gotten discouraged. It’s unfamiliar at first, and it’s easy to get bogged down and wonder whether this is really a worthwhile thing to do. Especially if we see prayer primarily as a way of expressing our needs and desires in God’s presence, the Psalms don’t seem to fit.
But this work of growing to know who God is, becoming more absorbed with Him and less absorbed with ourselves, won’t happen without a sustained effort on our part. Eugene Peterson has wise counsel in this area: “Believers must be aware that most of the time discipline feels dull and dead. We’re impatient if we have to wait a long time for something, especially in America. If we don’t find instant zest in a discipline, we make a negative snap judgment about it. But often what we describe as deadness, dullness, or boredom is simply our own slow waking up. We just have to live through that. Simple desire for more in our Christian lives is sufficient evidence that the life is there. Be patient and wait. It’s the Spirit’s work. We simply put ourselves in the way of the Spirit so he can work in us” (E. Peterson, Living the Message, p. 295). Jesus prayed the Psalms, and most Christians throughout the centuries have made this their regular practice. They’re the best tool I know of for this work of “unselfing,” becoming less absorbed with ourselves and more absorbed with the things of God. But we need to persevere. If you’ve struggled with this, try just praying the Psalms of Ascent for awhile. They’re all fairly short, and this is a manageable way to get started. From there, you could begin praying Psalm 119, section by section, and then move on to other familiar psalms.
As we take pains to cultivate an awareness of God, He will make Himself known to us. A number of years ago I heard a BIC missionary share about spending several days with John Stott, the English preacher and author. He had looked up to Stott for many years and looked forward to the opportunity to meet him personally. Often this sort of situation sets us up for disappointment, because our heroes usually don't live up to our expectations. But this man shared that John Stott was everything he had hoped from reading his books. He’s the opposite of Uriah Heep, with all his professions of being “ever so `umble.” And he got that way by persevering, over a long lifetime, in seeking to know God, both by studying His Word and by cultivating His presence. Let’s press on to know Him, praying that He might increase–that His presence might become more and more evident in our lives–and that we might decrease.
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