Resting in the weaning of God

by Patte Smith on Monday, April 23, 2012 at 8:19pm ·

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Ps 131:2

To the weaned child his mother is his comfort though she has denied him comfort. It is a blessed mark of growth out of spiritual infancy when we can forego the joys which once appeared to be essential, and can find our solace in him who denies them to us: then we behave manfully, and every childish complaint is hushed. If the Lord removes our dearest delight we bow to His will without a murmuring thought; in fact, we find a delight in giving up our delight. This is no spontaneous fruit of nature, but a well-tended product of divine grace: it grows out of humility and lowliness, and it is the stem upon which peace blooms as a fair flower. “My soul is even as a weaned child”; or it may be read, “as a weaned child on me my soul,” as if his soul leaned upon Him in mute submission, neither boasting nor complaining. It is not every child of God who arrives at this weanedness speedily. Some are sucklings when they ought to be fathers; others are hard to wean, and cry, and fight, and rage against their heavenly parent’s discipline. When we think ourselves safely through the weaning, we sadly discover that the old appetites are rather wounded than slain, and we begin crying again for the breasts which we had given up, It is easy to begin shouting before we are out of the wood, and no doubt hundreds have sung this Psalm long before they have understood it.


Blessed are those afflictions which subdue our affections,
which wean us from self-sufficiency,
which educate us into Christian manliness,
which teach us to love God
not merely when He comforts us,
but even when He tries us.

~ Spurgeon, C. H.