Psalm 131: Room For Only One God

One Year Bible: I Kings 11:1-12:19, Acts 9:1-25; Psalm 131:1-3; Proverbs 17:4-5

Room For Only One God

My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
(Psalm 131:1)

There is only One who is God—and that’s not you! Basically, that is what the King David is saying of himself in this brief song of assent. The Message translates verse one this way:

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost, I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business or fantasized grandiose plans.

Yet this business of godship is more prevalent than we care to admit. You see, when we fret and worry over matters we can’t control, when we meddle and manipulate to get our plans fulfilled, when we come to God after the fact for help, when we pray as a last rather that a first resort, when we cut corners in our financial stewardship because we can’t afford to give to the Lord’s work, and when we put our hope in government (or anything else) at the expense of our trust in God, in effect, we have removed God from his rightful throne.

There is room for only one God in your life, so let God be God. He has a great track record in that role, you know, and you don’t.

And by the way, when you allow God to be God, good things happen for you:

• You become the recipient of greater grace. Recognizing God’s rightful role takes true humility (the opposite of pride and haughtiness—Psalm 131:1), which is always the catalyst for more grace. (Proverbs 3:34)

• You become the recipient of greater security. You put things that are above your pay grade back into the hands of the only One wise enough to handle them—what David calls “great matters or things too wonderful for me.” (See how Paul describes them in Romans 11:33-36)

• You become the recipient of greater contentment. David says, “like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.” (Psalm 131:2, MSG) Paul says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (I Timothy 6:6)

• You become the recipient of greater hope. It is by Biblical hope, as Paul teaches, “we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?” (Romans 8:24) “Hope” as Paul says in Romans 5:5, “does not disappoint us…”

Hmmm…grace, security, contentment, hope. I think I’ll let God be God!

“I have one passion. It is He, only He.”
~Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf