Working Restfully: Like a Weaned Child on its Mother's Breast

Original illustration by Jo Rosenblum

Psalm 131: My heart is not proud, LORD, 
 my eyes are not haughty; 
I do not concern myself with great matters 
or things too wonderful for me. 
² But I have calmed and quieted myself, 
 I am like a weaned child with its mother; 

 like a weaned child I am content.

Like a weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul. I guess I am slowly moving towards this existential state, and it’s a wonderful place of rest.

The weaned child on its mother’s breast is parented; it is not alone. It’s not an orphan. It does not have to look out for itself, to hustle or push.

It is not a feral street child!

·      * * *

At this moment in the writing world, the gatekeepers are losing power. Through self-publishing, blogging, Facebook and Twitter, we can acquire an audience who like our stuff, whether the gate-keepers like it or not. Anyone who hustles can gain an audience, it sometimes appears.

And with this American sense of opportunity, of the world belonging to anyone who will work for it, can come a concomitant sense of anxiety and stress. The world can be yours, if you work, strive, push. And there’s a sharpened imperative: work, work, work. Like orphans. As if everything depended on us.

* * *

When George Mueller worked in Bristol, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, he was appalled to find people working 12 hours a day, 70 hours a week, and then working on Sundays too, if they could.

When he suggested they work less, they’d ask, “But how would we feed our families?” And so, he decided to raise money, serious money, to look after the orphans he took in, by prayer alone. Googling it shows he raised 7 million dollars in today’s money. Without asking a soul, or letting them know his needs. Just through prayer. Wow!

Hudson Taylor similarly raised significant money by prayer alone. His motto was To Move Man, Through God, by Prayer Alone. 

And if it worked for them, might it not work for me? If God could give Mueller 7 million dollars, through prayer, can he not also give me readers whom I can be a blessing to, through prayer and trust, without hustling?

The trick will be actually praying, not intending to pray. ( The same deal as with writing or exercise!)

                                                           * * *

Do I have the courage to leave my writing, and its success or failure to God, and to let the Lord be my literary agent?

To spend minimal time on promotion—I lack the faith to spend no time at all--but instead pray for blessing on my writing? Will it work? I will have to try and see.  

I know when I attempt to be my own literary agent, I make a fool of myselfJ! Get pushy, over-energetic, over-aggressive, over-promote. There is after all a reason for literary agents: when you are great with book, or blog post, and it appears, you are in no fit state to decide if it’s beautiful or ugly, personified, genius or trash. Mums are no fit judges of their babies. Most mums declare their babies are beautiful, even those babies who look wizened, red and wrinkled to an independent jury.

Like a weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul. And that is my desire: To work restfully and prayerfully.  Brother Lawrence, the kitchen monk describes this,

 "The time of work does not with me differ from the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Supper." (The Practice of the Presence of God.)

That’s how I would like to work: with the same peace and tranquillity. And “gaming” the results through prayer, with as little self-promotion as possible.