There are few psalms in the Psalter that are more personal, intimate or even introspective than this one. But it is important to see that although David is writing chiefly about himself and his own experience of learning to trust and love God, he does not leave the psalm at that point. Instead, at the end of the psalm, he looks to those about him, to Israel, and challenges them to learn what he had learned and “put [their] hope in God”: “O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.”
To summarize this week's study so far, we note that Psalm 131 is David's personal testimony, including his rejection of pride and arrogance, which we have already discussed, and also ambition, which we discuss in today's study.
As we saw in yesterday's study, David had learned to subdue pride. This is an important lesson for us to learn, too. In fact, it is the most important of all lessons having to do with Christian character, since pride is the most serious and pervasive of all vices. It is why the Bible has much to say about humility.
Psalm 131 is a personal testimony, as I said earlier, and one part of it is its acknowledgement of what David was or was inclined to be before God changed him and he learned to be satisfied with God alone. He speaks of these things negatively, saying what he is not like now because of God's grace. But he must have been inclined to these things once, which is why he is rejecting them. They are pride, arrogance and ambition, all in verse 1.
It is hard to imagine anyone spending three years with Jesus Christ and still wanting to be important himself, instead of just letting Jesus be important. But we do, and the disciples did even after years of exposure to Jesus' teachings.
