Suppose I confide in you that I am anxious. What would you say? Suppose you said, ‘I am sorry you are anxious. That means you must be proud’.
I might be offended. But this is how Psalm 131 diagnoses it. Anxiety is rooted in pride. Charles Spurgeon says this beautiful Psalm is, ‘one of the shortest … to read but one of the longest to learn’.
If a spiritual listening device were switched on in our churches, it would pick up a lot of noise, disquiet, anxiety in our hearts — about our jobs, or joblessness, our pensions, elderly parents, difficult teenagers, a troubled marriage, the aftermath of divorce, our health, upcoming exams, whether we will get married, whether we can have children... The list is endless. Can you put your hand on your heart and say, ‘I have a quiet soul. There is no noisiness inside me. Even in the midst of pressures and busyness my heart is at peace and still’?
Christopher Ash: how can we age well?
I am in my (very) early seventies. I have just written a book about following Jesus in your fifties and …