"As a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned
child."
It is good to cheer men on in a noble strife by speaking of the
certainty of victory, and by the story of heroic deeds to nerve their
arms for battle and stir their hearts to war. But that is not enough.
They want more than that. They want to learn how to wage a winning war,
how to secure the highest triumph, how out of conflict to organise
peace. In the good fight of faith what is the secret of success? Has our
Psalm any light on that point? By what method did the poet still the
turmoil of his doubt and reach his great peace? The process is finely
pictured in a homely but exquisite image: "Like a weaned child on its
mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." What does that mean?
Torn by an insatiable longing to know the meaning of God's mysterious
ways, he had struggled fiercely to wring an answer from the Almighty.
His heart was long the abode of unrest, and storm, and tempest. At
length peace falls on the fray; there is no more clangour of contention:
all is quietness and rest. How is this? Has he succeeded in solving the
enigmas that pained him? Have his cravings for an answer from God been
gratified? If not, how has he attained this perfect repose? His peace is
the peace of a weaned child. Not, therefore, by obtaining that which he
craved has he found rest; for the rest of a weaned child is not that of
gratification, but of resignation. It is the repose, not of satisfied
desire, but of abnegation and submission. After a period of prolonged
and painful struggle to have its longings answered, the little one gives
over striving any more, and is at peace. That process was a picture to
our poet of what passed in his own heart. Like a weaned child, its tears
over, its cries hushed, reposing on the very bosom that a little ago
excited its most tumultuous desires, his soul, that once passionately
strove to wring from God an answer to its eager questionings, now
wearied, resigned, and submissive, just lays itself to rest in simple
faith on that goodness of God whose purposes it cannot comprehend, and
whose ways often seem to it harsh, and ravelled, and obscure. It is a
picture of infinite repose and of touching beauty—the little one
nestling close in the mother's arms, its head reclining trustfully on
her shoulder, the tears dried from its now quiet face, and the restful
eyes, with just a lingering shadow of bygone sorrow in them still,
peering out with a look of utter peace, contentment, and security. It is
the peace of accepted pain, the victory of self-surrender.
The transition from doubt to belief, from strife to serenity, is
remarkable. We want to know what produced this startling change of mood,
what influences fostered it, what motives urged it, what reasons
justified it. Perhaps a glimpse, a suggestion of the process is hinted
in the simile chosen from child life. The infant takes its rest on the
breast of its mother—of its mother, whose refusal of its longings caused
it all the pain and conflict, whose denial of its instinctive desires
seemed so unnatural and so cruel. How is it, then, that instead of being
alienated, the child turns to her for solace in the sorrow she caused,
and reposes on the very breast that so resolutely declined to supply its
wants? It is because over against this single act of seeming unkindness
stand unnumbered deeds of goodness and acts of fondness, and so this one
cause of doubt and of aversion is swallowed up in a whole atmosphere of
unceasing tenderness and love. Besides, rating the apparent
unmotherliness at the very highest, still there is no other to whom the
child can turn that will better help it and care for it than its mother.
So, since it cannot get all it would like, the little one is content to
take what it may have—the warmth, and shelter, and security of its
mother's breast.
This process of conflict between doubt and trust, rebellion and
resignation, which half-unconsciously takes place in the child, is a
miniature of the strife that had surged to and fro in the poet's soul.
Pained and perplexed by the mystery of God's ways, foiled in his efforts
to fathom them, denied all explanation by the Almighty, he was beset by
the temptation to abandon faith and cast off his allegiance to his
heavenly Friend. But he saw that that would not solve any enigma or
lighten the darkness. Rather it would confront him with still greater
difficulties, and leave the world only more empty, dark, and dreary.
Then, benumbed and tired out, he gave over thinking and arguing, and was
content for a little just to live in the circle of light and sunshine
that ever is within the great darkness. Gradually it dawned upon him
that in the world of men's experience there was much, very much, of
goodness that could only be the doing of the God that moves in the
mystery and in the darkness. The warmth of the thought crept into his
heart, softer feelings woke, love and lowliness asserted themselves, and
at length he became content to just trust God, spite of all
perplexities, partly because there was so much undeniable proof of His
tenderness, and partly because there was more of rest and comfort in
this course than in any other.