The Psalmist begins with the right attitude, acknowledging as James does, that "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). The proud cannot expect to please God because he ‘doesn’t need Him’. He believes his own strength has brought prosperity, forgetting, "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). I wonder how much the proud man could accomplish in drought and darkness? David, although he was King, did not forget to humble himself before God. Contrast David with the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14. The Pharisee thanks God for not being an adulterer, unjust, an extortioner, and especially not a tax collector like the man praying beside him! The tax collector possessed the right mentality. Confessing himself a sinner he beat his breast and begged forgiveness from God. Let us also, "take heed lest we fall"(I Corinthians 10:12).
David also kept things in perspective. Remember Martha? The woman was, "worried and troubled about many things" (Luke 10:41). After inviting the Master into her home she, "became distracted with much serving" (Luke 10:40) while her sister Mary sat and learned at Jesus’s feet. Yes, the meals required preparing but Martha had gone way beyond this. In her obsession with small details Martha almost missed the best opportunity of her life; a chance to talk with Jesus himself! David speaks of the opposite condition of Martha’s; worrying about events out of our control. Jesus instructs us to, "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things (food, drink, clothing) will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33). So why, "worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things" (Matthew 6:34). Too often, like Martha, we fret over relatively small issues. Comparatively, uncertainty about the future or concerns about matters we have no control over only render us ineffective stewards.
When we place our trust in the Lord during daily events, unlike Martha or the person Christ describes, then we can understand what David means in verse two of Psalm 131. Calm, quiet, content, comforted, peaceful. If we humble ourselves before our Maker, trusting Him without reserve for the things of today and tomorrow, keeping our minds focussed on the task of serving Him, then we are blessed indeed! "O brethren, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever".
Volume 1, Issue 9 ~ ~ May 6, 2001
James clearly shows that there is both wisdom from above, and wisdom which is from this world. "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. THIS WISDOM DESCENDETH NOT FROM ABOVE, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. BUT THE WISDOM THAT IS FROM ABOVE is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." (James 3:13-17).
There is no contradiction.
Send Email