David once compared his personal spiritual growth and relationship with the Lord, to that of a baby who is being weaned on the mother’s lap. As a baby who is humbled while being fed on the lap of the mother, David in humility expressed his faith in the will of the Lord.
He said:
“Surely, I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
Psalms 131:2 NKJV
A child that is being breast fed from the lap of the mother, does not ever worry about the mother’s milk running out. The child is confident that the milk from the mother will never go dry. By faith a baby feeds from the mother’s breast.
And it’s in the same manner that our faith in God’s superabundant ability to care for us should be. The breast of the sacrificial animal in the Old Testament is a symbol of God’s loving care for us, in sending Christ Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.
This was exactly what the Old Testament priests were pointing to as they offered the breast, as a wave offering before the Lord (Leviticus 7:30).
It’s with this revelation that we do know that the Lord God can never stop loving us. The waving of the breast as a sacrificial offering in the Old Testament symbolized the eternal and unending love of God for us.
The name of the Lord God as the “El Shadai” is often recognized, as the nurturing name of God as our Mother. God is known in this way as the full breasted One who takes good care of all Her children, from the abundance of the milk flowing from Her breast.
In this way She nourishes our spirit, soul and body into the abundance of prosperity, that has been prepared for each one of us.
These words of David above clearly illustrate how El Shadai weans us. No matter how though or rough things may be for any child, the child will always be calmed down in the loving and caring embrace of the mother.
There is safety and security for the baby on the laps of the mother. That’s what is available for us also, when we as Christians are dwelling in God’s secret place always (Psalms 91:1).
We need to continue dwelling in the secret place of the Most High God for us to be persistently experiencing His nurturing love. The enemy of our soul does not want us to persistently be experiencing the loving care of God.
The evil one who is defeated today, only leaves you to fight against you on another occasion. The devil does not and will never repent of doing evil. He however knows that eternal judgment is waiting for him in the future. He will eventually get his date with it.
This however does not mean that we should take our eyes off the loving care of God Almighty.
As a mother gives the milk from her breast to calm down her child; that child is not only being calmed down in the process. The child is also being nourished to grow up into maturity.
The name of the Lord God as the El Shadai points directly to the sufficiency of the nourishment, that we receive from our dwelling place with Him. It’s in this same manner that the milk from the breast of the mother is sufficient to nourish her child into maturity.
The flowing milk indicates the blessing of the breast and of the womb in the life of the child. Whenever a mother is breast feeding her child, she is not just feeding the child. She is nourishing the child into prosperity.
There is a blessing that flows from a mother to her child, which powerfully connects them together. She is not just feeding her baby with milk, but she is depositing into the baby from the abundance of her spirit, soul and body also.
Whatever is in the life of the mother is being transferred into the baby through breast feeding. It’s a spiritual, emotional and physical connection that binds them together. Our relationship with God is in this way also while we are abiding in His secret place.
This is how a mother blesses her child – with her breast. Jesus blessed the little children by laying His hands on them, but a mother blesses her children with the milk from her breasts.
The time of weaning the child is the moment when the child receives the deposits from the mother, to increase more and to grow up with that deposit into maturity. The child does not need anything more than the deposit of the mother’s milk in life; but the child will now have to start prospering by faith.
God’s love is a seed that’s growing.
God Almighty takes care of us also from the abundance of His love. From the abundance of His love, He takes care of all the creations of the earth.
The Apostle Paul once described how God’s love can work in our lives. He wrote to the Ephesian Church:
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:17-19 NKJV
When God’s love is growing more and more in your life, it will fill up your life with the fullness of His presence. God’s care in our lives grows as we are growing in the knowledge of the width and length, depth and height of the deposit of His love in our lives.
God’s love is beyond what we can ever fathom or imagine. It’s bigger, larger, wider and stronger than what you can ever comprehend.
A child that is being weaned grows physically, just as a newly born-again child of God grows in the love of the Father.
David said that he was being weaned in the presence of the Lord, just as a mother weans her child from the lap.
God’s love is not only demonstrated in spiritual matters alone. He cares for our natural, financial, material and emotional needs also. He cares for our physical body by getting us healed and restored into good health.
The Lord’s loving care is seen in everything that He has created around us. All things were created by Him for us to enjoy on the earth, because He loves us (Genesis 1:28-30).
Everything that the Lord God gives to us on the earth are just seeds. They are the seeds of His love for us. He however expects us to prosper with the deposit of those seeds. His purpose with His love in our lives is to make this world, which is being destroyed by the devil, a better and prosperous place for us to live in.
God feeds all men, animals and every other creature from the abundance of His love.
And in the process of feeding us with healthy foods, we are being weaned also to become whom we had been created to be in life.
We must understand that God the Father sent His only begotten Son to the earth. Jesus was born as a Man like us. He relinquished the nature of God in Him, so as to identify with us on our own level.
Jesus received the same nourishment of God’s care and love, as we are receiving today from the Father also.
Jesus Himself said concerning this to the Father:
“I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
John 17:23 NKJV
As a mother cares for her child, God cared for His Son (Jesus) on the earth also. He was nourished into adulthood until He became spiritually matured to die for us all on the cross.
And in the same manner we are being nourished with the abundance of His love, to do His will on the earth.
We grow daily deeper and stronger in the love of God. There are certain Christians who have chosen not to grow up spiritually at all. These spiritual babies are never matured in the love of God.
To be able to grow in His love we do need His word to become alive in us. As a mother weans her child by feeding the baby with milk, so also is the care that the Lord has for us with His written word.
Weaning a child however involves much more than just feeding the child. It requires a lot of discipline on the part of the mother, who has to train the child how to be still and quiet while crying.
Godliness with contentment is profitable.
A mother has to discipline her child to become contended with whatever is being given as food for the child to eat.
The Bible says:
“Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.”
I Timothy 6:6-8 NKJV
In a world where children are becoming more and more picky and choosy, with their tastes and choices of food, weaning a child has become increasingly more challenging for many mothers. The devil has so many choices out there with which he is deceiving many children.
The challenge of weaning the child has become enormous for many mothers today. But by weaning the child in “godliness with contentment”; what may be seemingly challenging becomes easier.
A mother who thinks that she can do it on her own without God being on her side, is obviously deceiving herself. God Almighty is the One who can impact the wisdom for weaning that child, into becoming whom the child was created to be in life.
And by living a lifestyle pattern which glorifies God at home, it becomes easier to train children so that they can grow up in the love of God.
There are a lot of mothers who will give their children whatever the children want, and not necessarily what the children needs in life. Just because a child wants something does not necessarily mean, that is what the child needs.
A baby does not know the difference between what is needed and what is wanted. The baby does not know the difference between hot and cold water. The baby is still going through the weaning process, so as to be able to understand such differences.
And basically, a baby that is not properly being weaned may grow up to be irresponsible in life. The child will start demanding everything that he wants from the parents and the society, without the comprehension that the good things of life, comes only to us when we are working for them with the seeds of God’s love in our lives.
And each one of us has the seeds of His love in our lives. How are you using yours to increase more and more, as you replenish the earth with His glory?
God’s loving care works by faith.
Faith in God Almighty is what opens us up to a world of opportunities in Him, as we are using the seed of His love to prosper on the earth.
But faith can’t bring us prosperity with the seed of God’s blessing, if God’s love is not activated in our lives with it (Galatians 5:6). Don’t just be sitting on the seed of His love in your life. Start doing something with it today!
David said about the caring hand of the Lord concerning this:
“The eyes of all looks expectantly to You, And You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
Psalms 145:15-16 NKJV
God Almighty alone is the only One who can satisfy the needs for food, of every living thing on the earth at the same time.
But as David mentions here, we must be ready to look up to Him, to give us what we need on a daily basis. We must also be able to receive the increase of His grace for it.
God’s hand towards us is always open. God is never hand fisted towards us. His hand is always outstretched towards us to care for us.
Every child needs to be trained into understanding that only God can satisfy, the desires of our hearts for food and everything else in life.
And this begins by pointing that child to where the knowledge of God can be attained – the Holy Bible.
The Bible says:
“As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,”
I Peter 2:2 NKJV
God’s word is the pure milk that is needed for our spiritual and physical growth. It’s also what will cause a child to grow in the grace of the Father God.
A newborn baby needs milk from the mother to grow, but after a while that child will require more than just milk as the food for natural growth. A weaned child knows the difference between milk and meat.
The same thing applies to spiritual matters also. The milk of God’s word gives spiritual growth to the newly born-again Christian. After a while the milk of God’s word may become counterproductive in the life of that Christian, if there is no real desire in that Christian for spiritual growth.
That’s why the Bible says:
“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,”
Hebrews 6:1 NKJV
A Christian who is not desiring spiritual growth is not aiming to be perfect in the Christian walk of faith. There are certain Christians who thinks that the elementary principal teachings of Christ, are all that’s needed for them to grow up into spiritual maturity. Many who are holding on to this line of thinking have gone back to eating their own vomits (Proverbs 26:11).
A child who is able to eat the meat of God’s word is growing up in faith. That child can exercise faith for healing and many other things in life.
And it is important to encourage children to be doing this. The faith of a child is sometimes stronger than that of the adults, because children don’t have to struggle with many things in their lives as the adults, which can hinder their faith.
Children don’t worry about things as adults do. That’s why it’s important to encourage them to use their faith for whatever they are believing in God for in life.
A matured child that is looking for milk from the mother has a big problem. Matured children don’t feed on their mother’s milk, but on meat. It’s time for that child to grow up!
God’s word weans any child.
The process of weaning a child continues as that child needs to be taught how to exercise faith in the love of God. By training a child to exercise faith you are training that child, to be dependent on God and His written word in life.
When God’s word is absent from the home there will be a delinquency of the care of the Lord in that home. You can’t take God’s word out of your family life, and still expect the fullness of His loving care.
God’s word needs to be taught and read daily at home. It’s not the reading of the word alone that guarantees us God’s loving care. It’s the doing of what the word says.
When the home is deficient in the love and the word of God to train the child, then there is trouble ahead in that home. The provision of healthy foods will be lacking, and that home will begin to settle down for the crumbs, which are available for them to eat. Such parents will begin to look out for handouts from the world, instead of looking up to the Lord Jesus.
That’s when their children will begin to grumble and rebel at home. Obviously, it’s not the fault of the children, but of the parents, who have failed to point them to where to find God’s love and provision for all things (1 Corinthians 3:21).
The lack of contentment in a child’s life begins with the absence of humility and reverence for God’s word, in the life of that child. A child who is not being taught at home to honor God’s word will grow up in rebellion, not only against the parents, but also against everyone else in the society.
The child sees other children who had been trained to recognize God as the giver of the good things of life; and begins to wonder why he does not have those very things that other children do have.
Everything that is needed to wean a child begins with the knowledge of the reverential fear of the Lord by the parents.
The absence of the fear of the Lord in weaning a child into maturity is the very reason, why we often see them exercising violence to get whatever they want from the society.
A child who is not properly weaned from the home in the word of God is unruly and rebellious within the society.
Giving them the opportunity to grow.
God, the Father weans us all as a mother who wean her child. The process of weaning demands that some levels of responsibilities be given to the child as he is growing up. That’s how our Father in Heaven trains us all into becoming who He has called us to be in life.
Jesus said in the Parable of the faithful and wicked servants, while describing the attitude of that wicked servant:
“But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk,”
Luke 12:45 NKJV
The wicked and unweaned servant thought that his master would never come back on time. So, he started living a carefree life of carousing at the table and mistreating the other servants who had been placed under his authority. He was not being responsible with what had been committed to him.
Jesus therefore made this statement further to Peter in explaining the core message in the Parable:
“The master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant who knew his master’s will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”
Luke 12:46-48 NKJV
To whom much has been committed much will also be asked in return.
The servant in the above Parable was being weaned by the master, to become a ruler over part of his estate. To qualify for rulership, he had to be found faithful in certain things to his master.
By squandering what had been committed to him through carousing and mistreatment of the fellow servants, that wicked servant had exhibited the irresponsible attitude with which, he would have governed as a ruler in the estate.
And our Heavenly Father weans us like that also. He will always test what is in our hearts before giving us the true riches.
And truly like a good mother will do for her child, it’s not what we want that we will get from the Father, but what we really need to do what we need to do in His Kingdom.
Getting into the proper balance.
A child’s eating habit will always show us at the table, how that child had been weaned by the mother. Proper healthy eating habit of the child tells us everything, that we need to know about the mother.
It’s not an easy work to wean a child into adulthood. If the child ends up being a vagabond, the person who had weaned that child will have to take the blame for it.
Eating disorder in the life of many children is caused by the absence of proper weaning process by the parents. God wants us to be good stewards of what has been committed to us.
He does not tolerate irresponsibility from any one of His children. He weans us by providing the spiritual and natural foods that we need daily for living a prosperous lifestyle. The same spiritual and natural food from the Lord will heal you and give you good health.
The Lord does not only give us food for the stomach alone, but He weans us with the spiritual food alongside also; because He does not want us to end up being deficient in anything for life.
There are many people on the earth today who are suffering from what I can describe as “spiritual kwashiorkor”. They are feeding the physical body well, but their spiritual life is out of place before the Lord.
There is absolutely no desire in them for spiritual growth within the body of Christ. They are contended with being baby Christians, because they have rejected every attempt from the Lord to get weaned into spiritual maturity.
What are you doing with the seed of God’s love and His word in your life? Are you increasing more and more? Or are you still on the same spiritual level of growth in your Christian life?
Time is running out on you. It’s time for you to activate God’s love and word in your life. Don’t be like the evil servant who decided to bury the only talent that was received from the master (Matthew 25:14-30).
There is a great door of opportunity open before you. Don’t let it pass you by. Begin to maximize your many opportunities now.
