Like a weaned child

A baby in arms cries when it is hungry, and nothing but the feeding will quiet it; the whole small body strains toward the one thing it wants. But there is an older child, just weaned, who has learned something the infant has not. Carried against the mother now, this child is not fretting to be fed. It has discovered that she is simply there, that her nearness is itself the thing, and so it rests against her shoulder wanting nothing she has to give, only her. The grasping has stilled. The body, once all reaching, has gone quiet and heavy with trust. David, a king who had every reason to keep striving, reaches for exactly this image to describe what had happened in his soul. I have stilled and quieted my soul, he sings, like a weaned child with his mother. Not a soul that got everything it demanded, but a soul that stopped demanding, that learned to want the Presence more than the provision. The frantic grasping had eased, and something rarer had taken its place: a soul content, at last, simply to be held.

Even on the far side of the upheaval, your soul can stay frantic. You may have your faith back and still be clutching at God, needing Him to prove Himself by producing, to fix the situation, to deliver the outcome, to justify the trust by performing on schedule. David shows a quieter country. He stilled his soul like a weaned child, content simply to be held, no longer crying to be fed. Let your striving settle into that. You are allowed to rest in God alone, to want His presence more than His gifts, to stop measuring His love by what He hands you. The grasping eases the moment you discover what your soul was actually after all along. It was never the provision in His hands. It was Him. And He has not withheld Himself; He is already here, holding you, while you learn to stop clamoring and simply lean your weight on Him.