How to calm and quiet your soul…

He took the phone call outside, but I could still hear.

“Yeah, that way everything’s in place, just in case. And if I am there, I can cover that part. Thanks so much, man.”

He was happy, of course. He was talking to one of his favorite friends, an elder at Renew, who is more than capable of covering all church responsibilities.

But I still felt bad. I knew it took extra effort on everyone’s part, having to “play it by ear” and somehow it felt like my fault. After he hung up I hefted myself out of the lawn chair and went over.

“I’m sorry you have to make all these arrangements because of me.”

Of course, he looked at me aghast.

“You’re sorry?! Sorry that you’re carrying our child and enduring and still loving and serving us every day! There’s nothing to be sorry for!” He held me tight and kissed the top of my head.

It’s strange, the emotions that slip in sometimes. I remember, after having my second miscarriage last year, feeling so bad, because my family was so heart-broken and it felt somehow like I’d let them down. Like it was my fault somehow for breaking their hearts. Rationally, I know that isn’t right, but have you ever felt that way? Like somehow you’re to blame?

And so, this morning, when I woke at 3:30am to the realization that I was still pregnant, and it was Sunday, and all that that entails, and that extended family arrives today, and it’s already the 15th and all the moving parts of our summer plans start whirring around in my brain, plus several pregnant-related complications I’m “managing” and ministry concerns and my prayer list is as long as my leg and my head spins and after 12 days of on-off contractions I’m mentally so tired. 

And that’s just it. I realized this morning, I’m mentally so tired. Why? Because I’m an INTJ. Mastermind. Because my mind never stops moving. Because I am planning and coordinating and adjusting and considering all the blasted time and am just about to lose my ever-loving mind.

So this morning I open the Word, and here is King David saying,

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

Well, I thought to myself, that most certainly does not describe me. But I want it to! I wrote in my journal, to my own heart and to my God:

How does one calm and quiet one’s soul?

I rested my head and closed my eyes. The truth was, I didn’t know. I wished I did. This little waiting-for-baby thing would pass, but no doubt there’d be another thing just up ahead, and I needed to KNOW this.

Then, no surprise: I realize the answer was the first verse of the Psalm. Just before that David, who was the KING of a nation, I might add, writes:

“Oh LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.”

Then he writes that he is has calmed and quiet his soul. But the first verse explains how.

By not playing God. 

By not occupying my mind with things that aren’t my business. By refusing to “manage” what isn’t mine to manage. By stepping down from a lofty view of self. By not thinking it’s my responsibility to deliver on things I have no control to deliver on. By recognizing: I see from a hopelessly limited perspective and it is preposterous to think that I can even begin to understand how all these things will work together.

It is refusing to take on the work that only belongs to God. 

Tears.

Of course that’s it. Of course. It is so incredibly humbling to be a like a little child. To be utterly dependent, “in the dark” so to speak, with regard to what it going on behind the scenes. For planners, managers, like me, it is stripping to your soul to be kept so entirely “out of the loop” of what is going on.

When God gives you no clue what He’s doing. When you ask Him what’s up and He’s absolutely silent. 

I sit here marveling that David wrote this. That even the King of a nation knew he needed to calm and quiet his soul and not take on matters too marvelous for him. That no matter how high or low our position, we must remain like little children. Not because God wants to keep us low, or “in our place” but because He knows a precious secret:

That’s HOW you calm and quiet your soul. By letting Him to be God. And that is what we all truly need. 

{Thanks for reading.}