Soma

In his comment on my last post, Matt asked some really good quesitons.  “Any ideas on what it means to ‘have calmed and quieted my soul’?” and “Is this only supposed to be an-every-once-in-a-while thing, or is supposed to be more continual, and if so, how?”

The short answer to the second question is, “This is NOT supposed to be an every-once-in-a-while thing.”  David’s calmed and quieted soul does not simply describe what his heart is like when he takes “time out.”  It does not describe what his heart is like during his “quiet time.”  It describes what his heart is like (and what ours can be like) throughout the day regardless of the situation.

Now, this is not an easy or instantanious thing.  It takes grace empowered repentance, focus, and choice.  It takes place in the context of our relationship with God.  When God, the peace giver, is there when we go to work, when we go to school, when we come home, when we hear bad news, we remember that the sovereign Creator of the universe who intimately loves us is with us and in complete control.  If you’d like we can keep flushing out the practical implications of that this week, just let me know.  But to start off, one great step towards this kind of constant calmed and quieted soul begins (as all growth does) with repentance…repentance of the anti-psalm.  Here is the “anti-psalm” as written by David Powlison in his discussion on this Psalm a great book of his.

Self,

My heart is proud (I’m absorbed in myself), and my eyes are haughty (I look down on other people), and I chase after things too great and too difficult for me.

So of course I’m noisy and restless inside; it comes naturally, like a hungry infant fussing on his mother’s lap, like a hungry infant, I’m restless with my demands and worries.

I scatter my hopes onto anything and everybody all the time.