Cultivating Contentment

Melissa Kruger: One thing I’m really excited about today . . . Sometimes when you speak you can be concerned, “Oh, is anything I’m going to say going to matter?” Today I’m really excited, because after Nancy and Joni last night, I don’t really think it matters what I say! (laughter)

I called one of my friends and said, “I keep crying because all the stories! I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much at a conference in my life!” But I was also so struck that both of them really exemplified this notion of what it means when Heaven rules and how that deeply affects our contentment.

They didn’t maybe use the word “contentment,” but what we saw lived in Joni’s life was this deep, deep contentment, even when she’s sitting in that bed in deep pain, fighting—seriously, yelling out Scriptures to trust the Lord. It’s such an example for us of what it means to fight for contentment. 

I think we often think contentment just descends like the Holy Spirit on me. And that’s not really how it works. That’s what we’re going to talk about. It’s actually something we cultivate in our hearts. It’s not just something that some few people out there get, and it’s like a spiritual gift. It’s actually something that is cultivated. 

What I also want to say is, if you see a truly content woman, she’s not just born that way! We come out of the womb screaming our heads off, and we kind of continue that most of our lives. We are really good at complaining! We are really good at grumbling.

But it is a heart that has been restrained by the grace of God that can say like Paul, “I have learned the secret of being content in all things” (Phil. 4:12 NIV). That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I think, even for myself as I’ve explored this topic, I often wanted contentment for me.

I mean, don’t we all? We kind of think, Yeah, I want to be a contented person, because that makes me better. It makes me feel great about my life. Well, I want to start our talk, before we jump in, actually giving three reasons why your contentment is about more than just you, and why it’s so, so deeply important.

The first reason is that our hope matters to the watching world. I’m sure most of you have read this passage before, 1 Peter 3:15, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”

Now, who has heard this passage before in an apologetic training course? Like, “I’ve got to get ready! I’ve got to get my defense. “Let me give you three different reasons the resurrection happened.” We’re ready!

But notice what the defense is for? What does the passage say? “Always be prepared to make a defense.” Not for why Jesus rose from the dead, not for why we can trust the canon of Scripture and that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament all belong there—that’s not what you’re being asked to give a defense for.

You’re being asked to give a defense for the hope that you are foolish to walk around looking so hopeful and joyful all the time! You’re going to walk around in this world that is full of war, that is full of awful things happening every single day that make us all want to weep!

You’re going to walk around in this world, and you're going to be such a person of hope that people actually need you to make a defense for the hope that is in you. The watching world is looking at us as Christians. Sometimes I think—especially if they go on Twitter—they see us fretful and as anxious and as worried as every non-Christian out there.

Nobody is going on Twitter saying, “Well, goodness! That is such a hopeful person!” We want people who are walking into our neighborhoods, who are walking into our schools, who are walking into our grocery stores, who are walking into our communities and the hope that is within us because Jesus Christ has died and risen again is so great.

People look at us and say, “Tell us more about what’s going on in your heart.” The watching world is taking note of what we are like. So my contentment is about way more than me! My contentment is actually one of my biggest witnesses to the watching world. My life, my hope, is an apologetic that is speaking to the world every day, and it is powerful!

Second thing, the church is encouraged when we live lives of contentment. Paul was concerned about the Thessalonian church. He wrote to them. He knew they’d been suffering, so he said, “In all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord ” (1 Thess. 3:7–8).

Paul’s looking at them and saying, “Hey, your faith in the middle of suffering is encouraging me!” So not only do we speak to the watching world when we suffer and we do so with hope, we speak to our brothers and sisters in Christ. It actually matters.

You know, the reason I kept crying last night is because I was watching those stories, and to see deep joy in the midst of awful circumstances, it screams! What does it scream? “Heaven rules!” That’s what those stories are screaming.

It’s not just the watching world that needs it. I need it! I need to remember these truths. So my contentment, it affects a watching world, it affects the church. And lastly (and I think this is my favorite reason my contentment matters): my joy actually matters to Jesus.

On the night before He was to die on the cross, we know from the gospel of John that He went up and He washed His disciples’ feet, and then we’re told that He started to talk to them, He started to teach His disciples.

And in John 15 this is what Jesus said to them . . . You know what He didn’t do? He didn’t say, “You all gather around me, you all take care of me, you all feed me, you wash my feet. I’m getting ready to die for you!“ He didn’t do that. He poured out and He said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).

On the night He was getting ready to go to the cross, when we’re told He sweated with drops of blood because of His agony, our Savior was concerned about your joy and my joy. That tells me that this is a Savior who doesn’t just want my eternal satisfaction. He is deeply concerned about my joy today.

And so, me fighting for joy in the midst of a world that is broken actually matters to Jesus. It matters to the watching world, it matters to the life of the church, and it matters to our Savior. So that’s why we’re going to dig into this topic today. That’s why we’re going to fight to be women of contentment. 

The way we’re going to do this, we’re going to look at three things: first, we’re going to look at the quest for contentment: what are we even talking about? Does this mean I just tough it out and pull myself up by my bootstraps and act like everything’s okay all the time? Is that what we’re talking about?

The second thing we’re going to look at is, what is our biggest enemy? What is the enemy of your contentment and my contentment? And that’s when we’re going to look at the sin of coveting. And then lastly we’re going to look at, how do we fight our enemy of coveting and cultivate contentment? I’m going to actually open us up now with prayer (sorry for the long intro), and then we’ll jump in. Let me pray for us. 

Father, we thank You that You care about our joy, that we were lost and we were dead in our sins and You sent Your Son to come and rescue us, not just for heaven, but for today. So, Lord, we pray that we would live such lives that we would be people of hope, so that the watching world looks at us and says, “Tell us about Your God because your life is so different Tell us about Jesus.” Lord, change us to be those women. Change us to be women who face whatever comes saying, “I know that He is with me, and I know I can endure!” Help us, Lord, to be women who shine Your glory to the watching world. It’s in Your name we pray.

Okay, so to begin: the quest for contentment, what does it actually mean to be content? The first thing I want to say is what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean we should have a lack of emotions. The beautiful thing about the Gospels is that they show us a Savior who had a full range of emotions.

Jesus got angry when the money changers were in the temple. (see Matt. 21:12) He was sad at the death of Lazarus. (see John 11:35) He was in agony before the Cross. (see Luke 22:44) You know, what Jesus didn’t say before the Cross was, “It’s all good!” He didn’t do that. He was honest.

Paul never shied away from telling people about the hardships he was facing. He told people, “Look, I’ve been shipwrecked, I’ve been in danger on the sea, I’ve been in danger on the land, I’ve been whipped and beaten this many times, daily I bear the burden of the church.” (see 2 Cor. 11:24–29) Paul shared honestly his struggles.

So contentment is not an absence of struggle, nor is it an absence of talking about your struggles. Even last night we understood something about our God hearing Joni talk about her suffering. It’s okay to share what is honestly happening. That’s not in opposition to contentment. Contentment is not an emotional-less life. 

Instead this is what it is: contentment is an inward assurance of God’s sovereignty and goodness that produces the fruit of joy and peace in the life of a believer, regardless of outside circumstances.

So it’s an inward belief about God that produces outward fruit regardless of what’s happening in our circumstances. So these are really important things. The visual image I like to use of contentment comes to us in Psalm 1. 

I love Psalm 1. It says, “Blessed is the man who doesn’t sit in the seat of the mockers” who doesn’t do all those things.

Blessed is the man . . . 

who delights in the law of the LORD,
and on His Word he meditates day and night . . . 

whatever he does prospers.” (Ps. 1:1–3 paraphrased)

It says that he is like a tree planted by a stream of water; he’s always bearing fruit.

That’s this image, I want to keep it in your head. You know last night when Nancy was talking about “the bad tree of Nehemiah?” That’s the tree we don’t want to be—the prideful tree. This is a tree that is planted by an external stream, so it’s constantly being filled and it’s constantly bearing fruit. 

Jeremiah talks about the same tree in Jeremiah 17:7–8: 

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
   whose trust is the LORD. 
He is like a tree planted by water, 
   that sends out its roots by the stream, 
and does not fear when heat comes, 
   for its leaves remain green, 
and it is not anxious in the year of drought, 
   for it does not cease to bear fruit.

Notice, external circumstances are not always good. “Even in the year of drought,” it’s bearing fruit. We want to be like that tree! No matter what is happening externally, we’re bearing fruit because we have a source that is producing that fruit.

This is what I love about Scripture. Things that are written in these nooks and crannies (the Psalms, Jeremiah). Now Jesus in the gospel of John picks up on this imagery, and what does He say? “Abide in Me and you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” (see John 15:5)

Do you know what Jesus is claiming? “I’m the Stream you need to be planted by! Abide in Me and that’s the only way to bear fruit.” And what’s that fruit that grows on the Jesus-tree? Galatians tells us, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience . . .” Those are the fruit that we bear by abiding in Jesus. That’s the contented life!

That’s that life that says, “No matter what happens to me externally, I’m bearing this fruit because I am connected to the Vine that is Jesus!” So the contented woman is ultimately an abiding woman. I want you to really listen to what Jesus said. He said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing!”

I don’t know if any of you are gardeners here; I love to garden. I love my tomato plants, they bring me a lot of joy I will say! But when they come to this type of season right now [she’s speaking in late September], all of mine are dead! If you pull up a vine, a vine is useless for anything.

If a tree dies, you can take the wood and you can build something. You can build a table; you can build a chair; you can build something! A vine . . . nothing! I put them in a big black trash bag and they go away, because they are good for nothing!

Everytime I do that, I remind myself, “This is what I’m going to look like if I’m not abiding in Jesus. This is the image of what life apart from Jesus looks like.” And often, women, aren’t we living that life? We’re going forward saying, “I’m okay, I’m okay! I spent time with Jesus, like, a month ago.” It’s not enough.

That’s why He said He’s daily Bread (see John 6:35). He’s the Living Water (see John 4). All the images are the things we need every day. We have to be abiding women. There is no way to be content in this world apart from abiding in Jesus. There’s no way! It’s impossible to do.

Paul gives us some further characteristics of what contentment looks like in his letter to the Philippians. This is that verse that everytime we talk about contentment, this is what we talk about. He says, 

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Phil. 4:11–13 NIV)

Verse 13 is one of those ones, like we talked about last night, that kind of get put like on the soccer team jerseys: “I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength!” (“I can score that goal. I can run that extra mile!”) What’s Paul talking about here? He’s talking about contentment!

And let me say, the mountain of contentment is a harder mountain to climb than any other one you will physically face. But he says, “I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.” 

So here is some wisdom we can take from this passage: The first thing is that contentment is available. Contentment is not for super-hero Christians. It is for anyone who is connected to Jesus. So if you are connected to Jesus, it is available to you, and that is very, very good news! 

The second thing,it is independent of circumstances and dependent on Christ. Okay, so what we are not saying is, “I have learned the secret of being tough as nails and I can be content in every circumstance.” This is not a hardened woman. This is a woman who is an abiding woman, who says, “I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me.” 

And did you hear what Nancy said last night? “He’s not strengthening you for your imaginary fears.”  Elisabeth Elliott used to say that, if you’ve ever listened to Elisabeth Elliott, whose husband was martyred along with four other missionaries in Ecuador.

She always said people would come up to her, almost more distraught than she was about her life, and say, “How can you bear this!” And she replied, “God’s grace is sufficient for your real life, not your imaginary one.” 

What we need to hear as women, don’t think about tomorrow. This is what will rob you of contentment if you are thinking about tomorrow. Ask yourself, whatever you are bearing today, can you bear it for one more day? Can you hold it for today? And you might even say to yourself, “Can I hold it for the next hour?”

And then you make it that hour, and then you ask, “Can I hold it for the next hour? Can Jesus hold this with me for an hour?” It’s when we start saying, “I’m not sure I can bear this for another year. I’m not sure I can stay married to that person for ten more years or fifteen more years.” Can you stay married today?

Can you fight for contentment today in whatever you’re bearing? That’s the question for you. It’s not ten years down the road. Fight for contentment—through Christ’s strength alone—for today. I also want to say this: it’s not dependent on your outside circumstances. I’ve spent too much of life thinking, “If I can get my circumstances sorted, then I’ll be content.”

This is what Thomas á Kempis said (he lived 1380–1471 A.D.). This is not a new problem, this happened a long time ago. “You cannot find complete satisfaction in any temporal gift, because you were not created to find your delight in them. Even if you possessed all the good things that God had created, you could not feel happy and glad. All your gladness and happiness rests in the God who created those things.” 

Remember, our first mother had the perfect life! Eve had the perfect husband. She had the perfect relationship with God, and it was not enough. Don’t believe that circumstances will solve your contentment problem, because they won’t.

The third thingthis passage teaches us is that contentment is learned. Okay, I find this really hopeful!. I realized, I think I’m the slowest learner on the planet, and that’s why the Lord keeps having me teach on these things, because every time He gives me context!

I’ll tell you, this week the context was: I’m working on a new book. Every word is painful, every word! It feels like, “Oh! I don’t want to do it!” I’d written a thousand words. I hadn’t thought to save it. I moved my computer. It all shut down, and they were totally gone! 

And it was like, “Dear Lord, I’m trying to serve you! Why is it so hard!?” I just laughed to myself. We had just spent time praying with the Revive Our Hearts team. In my heart I had said, “How am I going to live like Heaven rules this week—this week, when my life doesn’t go as planned?”

I will say I did kind of scream out loud, but then I said, “I trust You, Lord. You must have not wanted those words on that piece of paper for this book today.” And I said, “I’m going to live like Heaven rules right now.” And it brought peace to my heart. 

And this is where I want to say that it’s a learned thing. We fight for it! We have to fight in our brain for contentment. It’s not like, “Oh, a thousand words, no big deal. Thank you, Jesus!” That’s not where I was, but I got there. I could say, “I trust You Lord. You’re good to me. This has to be, because that’s what You promised me.”

I don’t know the last time you learned something new. I think the older we get we stop learning, and so we get a lot more scared by the failure. A few years ago my kids convinced me to try to learn the RipStik. I don’t even know if these even still exist now. It’s like, “Please, would you like a trip to the yard?” That’s what a RipStik is. (laughter)

It’s this little, almost like a skateboard, that wiggles. You get on it, and watch them! They were all going around the tennis courts and doing all this stuff. My friend and I were like, “We can do that!” So we get on, and we immediately fall off! And then our kids tell us, “Hey! You’ve got to wiggle your hips like this!”

And so we’re wiggling our hips, and we’re doing all these things. Then we tried a little more and fell off again. Eventually we got to the point where we could actually do it. But it was a really good reminder to me of what it takes to learn something.

So I want to give you some encouragement as you're on this fight for contentment: you’re going to fall off, and you’re going to fall down, and you’re going to look at yourself and say, “I was trying to trust You, Lord. I was trying to remember all Your promises.” And you might not, but you get back on and you keep trying. You keep saying, “I’m going to put this verse in my mind today, and I’m going to focus on Your truth today, Lord.” 

I just want to encourage you, just because you’re at whatever point in your faith . . . I’m going to be learning contentment, I feel like, my whole life.

And what I would say is this: it will get faster. You will fall off, and you will get back up faster the longer you keep fighting this battle. So what maybe would have put you under for like two months, you will learn to more quickly trust God the longer you walk with Him. But just remember that learning takes time. It’s okay that we fall off, but we keep getting back up and getting back on. 

The last thing I just want to say is that we talk about contentment; this isn’t just something we pursue because we want it. It’s actually commanded. The author of the book of Hebrews said this: 

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because He has said, "I will never leave nor forsake you." (Heb. 13:5 NIV)

He commands it of us, because He wants what we know about God to be so rooted in our lives that it has to be expressed by our contentment . . . that what we know about God—that He is with us, He tells us—is the thing we need. 

We think we need X, Y, or Z. Everybody in here probably has an “if only this.” “If only this . . . then I would be content.” We all have an “if only” list. But He is saying, “Because you have Me, you can be content.” That’s the sentence. There’s nothing else to fill in.

Because we have God, we can be content, because He is in our lives. I know that that is actually really a difficult thing. We’ve talked about what contentment is, we’ve talked about what it kind of looks like, what verses point to it. 

But the second thing I want to talk about is what actually robs us of contentment. I call coveting “the great joy thief.” I think we so often don’t relate these two things, because we have mirrored coveting so much in our modern world that we think it’s just with money and possessions. 

But coveting is a much bigger problematic sin. It is exactly what leads to our discontentment and our grumbling. Again, I want to always stress, coveting is not a problem of desires. It’s not a bad thing to want things. We live in a world that is far from Eden. I want a lot of things. A lot of things are very broken in this world. 

We all want a lot of really good things that sometimes do not happen because this world is broken, so having desires is not the problem. Here’s the definition I want to give you for coveting—and it’s kind of a complicated definition, so I’ll define some of the parts after I give it to you.

Coveting—it’s using like Puritan language, but I love the poor Puritans! They sometimes have old-fashioned language: “Coveting is an inordinate or culpable desire to possess often that which belongs to another.” So it’s “inordinate” or “culpable.” What do I mean by those two words? 

“Inordinate” is the depth of our desire. So, if our desire is so deep for something that it has essentially become an idol in our lives—we love something so much because we value it over the love of God—it has become an idol.

The second is a “culpable” desire. What do we mean by a culpable desire? If we want something that is clearly prohibited to us in Scripture, that’s a culpable desire. So I might have a desire for a husband, if I’m a single woman, but if I have a desire for your husband, it’s a culpable desire. It’s out.

That’s a covetous desire. It’s never going to be okay to be wanting someone else’s husband. So there are certain desires that we need to look in our heart and say, “That’s wrong. It’s not one for you to have.” 

There are some desires that we need to look at our heart and say, “That’s an okay desire, to want a home, to want a meal, clothing . . .” whatever it might be. “But how’s my desire for it?” The word I like to use is, “Has my desire for it soured?” Has it become a desire that is idolatrous in my heart in such a way that I believe I cannot live a joyful, content life without it? 

So that’s the question we have to talk about when we talk about “inordinate.” And that’s what most of us are dealing with. I think most of us can accept, “If God’s Word prohibits it, I need to entrust that to Him.” But let’s think a little bit more about the inordinate, and we’ll get to that in just a minute.

I want to explain one other thing about coveting. (There are a lot of words that talk about inordinate desires.) Coveting in Scripture (and this is how the Ten Commandments normally work) they’re umbrella commandments. So coveting—the “do not covet” commandment in the Scripture that says not to want these things—is actually the big umbrella. Under it are three other words: “envy,” “lust,”and “greed.” 

So envy is setting our affections on something that belongs to another, most likely it’s like your neighbor. Our “neighborhood” with Instagram has gotten a lot bigger! So we have a lot more neighbors to look at than living rooms now.

The second one, lust, is coveting that is usually sexual in nature, so that’s a different type of coveting. And then greed describes coveting that is usually about money and possessions. And that one, just always be careful, the wealthiest person in the room is not necessarily the greediest. They might be, but you can have very little money and still be extremely greedy. You can be incredibly wealthy and be incredibly generous. 

You can’t make judgments on who’s coveting the most based on what they have. It’s an issue of our heart. So I want us to look at a few characteristics of coveting, because this is going to help us. 

And let me say, the reason we’re going through the exercise, we have to know our enemy if we’re going to fight well. So, fighting and cultivating contentment, the first thing, if you’re going to do battle, you need to know about your enemy. Coveting is the enemy to your contentment.

I’m going to dig into some of the places in our hearts. I’m going to tell you this is not always comfortable, but it is what we need to do. As we excavate the heart we’re going to see, “Yeah, we have some big problems!”

But this is the good news: we have a Savior who His mercy is more! That’s always the good news as we start digging into these heart desires. His mercy is more than the problem of our sin! I want to look at some characteristics of coveting.

Coveting is a sin pattern, not a circumstance. It’s not going to be solved by attainment. I don’t know if you remember the story of Rachel in the Old Testament [Genesis 29–30]. Rachel was locked in a covetous battle with her sister; they had the unfortunate reality of being married to the same man. (It’s not a great place to begin your sisterly relationship or continue your sisterly relationship.)

She watched her sister give birth again and again and again. She had a good desire. Her desire was to have a child. And finally she has a child. And do you know what she names him? Do you remember? Joseph. Do you know what the name Joseph means?

“Joseph” does not mean, “The Lord has finally given what I desire and now I’m finally content!” The name Joseph means, “May the Lord add.” Okay, here’s the thing about coveting: it’s a heart problem, not a circumstance problem. As soon as you obtain the thing you desire, you will just start wanting something else.

She has one baby, but she’s looking at her sister who had just had her sixth, and so she’s like, “A little bit more!” And that is the nature of our hearts, right? John Calvin, the famous theologian, said, “Our hearts are an idol factory.” They’re perpetually producing more.

And that’s the same of our covetous desire as well, always wanting more. Think about what you desperately wanted at age sixteen. You may have gotten it. And then think about what you wanted at twenty. You probably somewhere along the way got that.

If we look back on our lives we see this constant craving for more. We get something, we attain, and then we want something more. And so that’s the first characteristic. The second, it’s marked by comparison and entitlement.

Coveting is all about looking over the fence and saying, “I will have what she’s having, please!” It’s not just looking over the fence, it’s actually looking over the fence and saying, “Why does she get that and I don’t!? Why does she have these things and I don’t?”

And it’s not just things. Here are four areas that we tend to covet: money and possessions is definitely one; relational, we long for friends, a husband, a different mother-in-law, a different daughter-in-law; seasons and circumstances, giftedness and abilities.

Have you ever looked at someone at church and said, “If I just had that gifting, I would really serve in the church well!” I look at people who can sing. I cannot sing; it would not benefit any of you if I burst into song right now. Sometimes I look at people who can sing—like Kristyn Getty—and I’m like, “Ohh, that’s the way to serve the Lord! It makes everyone joyful and happy! And I’m here, stuck talking about coveting!” (laughter) So you can look at somebody else’s gifts and sometimes say, “If I had that, then I would serve!” Serve the Lord with what you have.

So we’re always comparing. I want to talk about this type of comparison. Sometimes we compare ourselves to one woman in particular. I want you to take a minute to think about her. There might be one person in your life that you’re like, “Yep, nothing bad ever happens to Sue! It always goes well for her.” 

And you kind of sit there and you think, “Yep, if I had her life, though, I’d be content. You know, she’s always walking around happy and all things, and that’s because she has the perfect house and the perfect husband. Her dog even obeys and doesn’t bite people.” You look at her life and think, “She’s got it all!”

I did women’s ministry in the local church for ten years. Do not believe the lie of the facade you see outside, that women are wearing. People cannot always share how their life is falling apart. My deepest pains, you know, I’m not posting those on Instagram . . . and I doubt you are either. No one says, “I’m hiding in my closet crying because my husband and I just had a big fight.”

No one says, “I think my teenager hates God.” You see the pictures posted that show everything that’s going okay. We can’t share the most painful places in our lives, and you know what? We don’t have to. The Bible tells us everybody is walking through a broken existence. It’s hard for everyone out there. 

Don’t believe the lie that someone’s got the amazing easy life. It’s just not true. I had a situation with a friend; we were all in a small group together. One friend was single, one friend had been yearning for a baby for years. I was talking with my single friend and she said, “Well, look at Elizabeth! She finally got the baby she wanted!” (We had just been at a shower for her baby who had just been born.)

And she said, “See, some people do get all the things that they want!” She said this to me, and the week before I had met with Elizabeth, and the week before Elizabeth’s baby was born she found out her husband had been having an affair. My single friend didn’t know, and I couldn’t tell her. All I could say was, “You know, I think everybody’s life has tough things in it.”

We just don’t know what is going on behind someone’s life. So don’t compare your life to someone else’s and say, “Lord, please give me this life.” You do not know what you are asking for, you simply do not know.

But here’s what do you know: the person who you are—exactly how you have been crafted, exactly how you have been made, your personality, your skin, your hair color, your eyes—were divinely chosen by a God who deeply loves you and who is ruling over everything in your life! And so whatever He gives you, He is entrusting to you. He says, “You can do this with Me.”

Do you remember somewhere in the Chronicles of Narnia, I think it’s Shasta, The Horse’s Boy, he wants to know about somebody else’s story. And Aslan looks at him and says, “I tell no one else someone else’s story. I only tell them their own story.” He’s only asking you to trust Him with your story. 

Focus on God, not what’s going on with other people, because our comparison is always blind. We don’t know what we are comparing. 

The third characteristic of coveting (and this is another Puritan word) is a “begetting” type of sin. Basically it gives birth to more sin; these inner desires of ours. They don’t stay in our hearts.

You think, “I can be a little grumbly and discontent; nobody has to know.” In fact, you might even look at the tenth commandment—after murder and adultery and stealing. You’re like, “Man, what’s the big deal of the last one? Who does it harm?”

Well, here’s what James tells us: that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death” (James 1:14–15 NIV).

Desires don’t stay within our heart; these inordinate desires, they’re going to give birth in your life to places of sin. So when we talk about fighting this, I’m not talking about fighting this so that you’re pleasing to God; I’m talking about fighting because you already are. God is pleased with You.

He is saying, “Walk in the course of my commandments. Run in the path of My commandments because I’ve set your heart free!” He’s not shaming you to fight these desires. He’s like, “These desires are going to lead you to places of death!” What He’s saying is, “Fight for contentment and live!”

So the question for all of us in this coveting as we’ve looked at these characteristics is how do we know when a good desire has soured? This is always the question. And what I want to say really clearly here is: some days we’re sour as sour can be, and some days we’re holding a desire rightly. We’re all going to struggle with that in our lives.

I like to think of it like two jugs of milk in the fridge. You look at them and they both look fine, and then you start pouring one and you see the chunks and you smell it and you say, “That is sour!” And the same is true of our desires; they will show themselves to be sour.

I think the main way that a desire that has turned covetous shines that it is sour is that the attitude while we wait is full of discontentment and grumbling and anger and just deep, deep frustration with the Lord.

It’s not being realistic and saying, “I’m in a lot of pain; will you pray for me?” That’s different. It’s a deeply bitter heart that says, “The Lord is not good, because He gave me this.” It’s this deep, deep bitterness.

Probably about fifteen years ago some friends and I were at a park, and we loved this park because it was completely fenced. It had swings and slides and monkey bars and a sand pit. It had these nice little tables where we moms would sit while the kids ran, so we could actually maybe have a conversation for a few minutes while they did different things.

Right outside the fenced section there was a big field, and that field was next to a big busy road. So the older kids in the group all came to us, and they asked the parents, “Hey! Can we play out in that field?” right outside the fence.

And the moms kind of all gathered together, and we’re like, “No-o-o.” Because we know how this goes. If we let the older kids play outside the fence, then all the younger two-year-olds will want to play outside the fence. Then we will have anarchy and people running into the street! And so we said, “No.”

So we go back to talking as moms, and a few minutes later I look up and all of those older kids are standing at the fence looking at the field. Now, right behind them is a whole playground for their amusement. I mean, there’s room to run around in this playground, there are slides, there are monkey bars, there’s a sand pit. There’s all this they could be doing and enjoying, and they were standing and looking at the field! And I realized, that is often what I do when my desire has soured. I can not see anything good in my life because I am looking at the field of my longing, and I have forgotten about the field of my blessing. I’m just looking over that fence, saying, “I wish I could be in that field!”

I miss everything that has been given to me because I’m so busy looking at what I don’t have! And that’s a sure sign that our desire has soured, and it’s robbing us of joy! So those are those markers. Basically, when you see your life is not bearing the fruit of the Spirit, when you’re unloving, unkind, impatient. When all of those things are bearing fruit in your life, it’s just a sign saying, “Something’s wrong in my heart. An idol is capturing my heart, and I need to start doing battle.” 

The last thing I want us to talk about on this, well, I want us to talk about three things: What is at the heart of our problem when we covet? This is really important. It’s not just our fighting with our sin, there is some unbelief that we need to deal with, and there are three things I want us to look at.

The first thing is that basically our coveting looks at God, and maybe we would say Heaven rules, but I think most of us would be like, “Yeah, You’re ruling, but You’re not doing a very good job!” I want to give an example. 

Let’s say that big blue screen up there . . . Let’s say I greatly limit God and I say, “That’s everything that God knows about the universe.” Now, we know I’m limiting Him because He is infinite, and He is eternal, and His knowledge cannot be contained. But let’s say, I say that blue thing is all God knows about the world.

If I could touch this and put one small pencil dot on that blue screen and greatly over exaggerate my own knowledge of the world and say, “That’s how much I know! One little dot, that’s how much I know about this world and what’s going on in human history.” Again, big over exaggeration, big under exaggeration.

I (the small dot) look at the big blue screen and I say, “I don’t really think you know that much! I don’t think You are really reigning very well!” I want you to know that our coveting is high treason! We are actually saying, “God, You’re not doing this well!”And we are saying that from a place of complete and utter ignorance.

I do not know what’s best for me. Now, I’m so glad I don’t have to figure my life out. I would choose wrongly every time. How good is it that we can say, “I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on You!” because we know that a loving and good God, who sent His Son to die for us, rescue us, He is reigning! The dot does not get to reign.

But we kick and scream like a toddler who is throwing themselves on the floor, and we say, “I don’t think You’re doing this right!” That’s the image of who we are in comparison to who God is, and actually our grumbling and complaining is not small.

Did you ever read about the Israelites in the Old Testament? They didn’t get to go to the Promised Land? It’s not because they were doing all these terrible, awful things, in our modern mind, they were grumbling and complaining. But it was high treason against the God who had just rescued them (like two seconds ago) from the Pharaoh and from the Red Sea.

They had just crossed over, and already they’re like, “Maybe He’s not going to feed us!” And this is what we do. “I know You said, Jesus . . . I know He died an awful and painful death for my sins. I know that He came and lived a perfect and holy life and all of that has been given to me. But You have not given me a minivan with sliding doors!”

Girl! We are looking at Him and saying, “I don’t know if Jesus is enough.” That’s what our coveting says: “I don’t know if Jesus was enough to prove that You actually love me.” We have to realize that we have a huge heart problem when we are coveting.

Thomas Watson, another Puritan, said, “If the thing we desire [this is what a heart that trusts God says] is good, we shall have it. If it is not good, then the not having is good for us.” I highly recommend a book called The Art of Divine Contentment by Watson. It’s like eighty pages.

It is just full of statements like that, that I need to fill my mind with constantly. It’s so good! I highly recommend it. You can get it for free because it’s that old. It’s one of those old, old books that are free online. Print it up and read it!

So, the first thing is that coveting exposes that we have an unbelief, actually, in the character of God. We actually don’t believe He is good or we don’t believe He is sovereign; one of those things is off. 

The second thing: coveting exposes our unbelief in our true home. A few years ago we lived in Cambridge, England; my husband was a busy professor there. The house we lived in there, it felt a little less than my American home. It didn’t have a dishwasher. It kind of had a dryer, but it kind of just burned the clothes as it kind of spun around. My refrigerator was like a dorm fridge, that I played Tetris to get all the food in every week when it came. The decor wasn’t really what I loved. I’d sit there and none of it bothered me, you know. I was just like, “I’m so glad to get to have this experience to live here! It’s okay that we have to wash the dishes every night, because, wow! We get to do this!”

Part of me knew, “This is six months of my life.” I knew back in America I actually had two refrigerators—one in the garage to hold all the extra food that I have in my house. I knew I had a huge washer and dryer that can probably fit a full comforter. I had a yard for my kids to play in. I had my own decor in that house.

Knowing that I wasn’t living in my home actually helped me. Knowing that I had a home that was coming helped me enjoy the home that wasn’t that perfect. And here’s what coveting exposes: coveting exposes that I think this world is my true homel 

This is an airport; we should approach this life as a journey. We are on our way home. But you know when you’re traveling, you just recognize things aren’t going to be that great. You recognize, “I am probably not going to sleep very well.” You recognize, “My clothes are going to be dirty. I’m going to feel yucky, and that’s just what this is, this is a travel day.” That’s what this life is. 

And it’s actually when we start believing in this life, we will be robbed of our ability to enjoy it. But when we believe that My Savior is preparing a home for eternity for me, I can deal with it here. I’ve got an eternal weight of glory coming.” 

I’ll bear whatever You want me to bear here, because I know it will all be right there! There will be no more crime, there will be no more tears, there will be no mourning. Home is coming! I’m just getting there. That’s what we have to know: our home is coming, so we can wait with patience here.

Last thing, we actually have an unbelief about our purpose. We think when we come to Christ, He just wants to come and make our life great! Isn’t that sometimes the line that we’ve been told? “Coming to Christ all your problems will be solved!” He died on a Cross, the Savior! And then He says, “Take up your cross and follow Me!” 

We are not listening to the Bible if we are believing false promises that He never promised. The Bible is very clear that this world is full of suffering, and God’s people are suffering. Pretty much all of the disciples were martyred, except for John. I mean, things don’t go well, often, for God’s people.

It’s not that He’s saying, “Come to Me and I’m going to give you the life of your dreams!” No, He says, “Come follow a crucified Savior.” So we actually have a wrong view of our purpose in life. His purpose is not to make your life look like everybody else’s; His purpose is to make you look like Jesus! That is His best good for you!

In Romans 8:28 when it says (you know, we quote this to one another), “He’s working everything for good!” but we forget the next part. What’s the next part? “So that you would be conformed into the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:28–29 NIV). That’s His best good for you.

I love how C. S. Lewis says it (he says everything so beautifully!):

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is stopping up the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you were not surprised.

But presently He starts knocking about the house in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house than the one you thought of.

He’s throwing on a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

Jesus is dreaming way bigger dreams for you than you are dreaming for yourself, and that is good, good news! Scripture says, “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Rom. 8:9 NIV). That’s what He’s working for you, and that’s what He is doing.

Okay, so we are almost out of time for this activity. I’m going to close with this thought: We’ve talked about what contentment is, we’ve talked about the great enemy, which is our coveting. And the last thing I want to just put in your minds is, “How do we cultivate contentment in our lives?” 

And let me say this really clearly. We talked about this a little bit at the beginning. We must be abiding women if we want to be content women! We do not fight for contentment by being tougher; we fight for contentment by being on our knees and being in the Word. We must be women who seek the Lord daily!

I also want to encourage you to desire more out of life, not to desire less. There’s a popular offer under the Christian guise who talks about having a dream wall. And on her dream wall was a house in Hawaii, being on the cover on Forbes, and having famous friends. This was on her dream wall. 

And she’s like, “If I put my dream wall up there, I’m going to get it!” And she’s gotten a lot of those things. But let me say this and what I know about my own heart. If I had a second home in Hawaii, I’d be like, “Why are y’all tracking in all the sand!?” I’d be discontent about the sand, or I’d be upset that my kids had done something, or upset that my husband had done something, if I don’t have contentment.

If I got on the cover of Forbes I’d be like, “Uhhh, I can’t believe they put me at that angle! I can’t believe they did that!” I’m not asking you to dream for less, I’m actually asking you to dream for more!

If I could give you a dream wall, it would be the fruit of the Spirit. It would be. “Lord, I’m going to put this up.” Maybe put it up in your house. Put up a dream wall and put on it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Put it up and say, “Make me like that, Jesus.”

Put up your promises, like we talked about last night, and say, “Make me believe Your promises!” We’ve got to seek more out of life, not seek less, to be contented women. The other thing I just want to encourage you to do also is confess freely to one another.

You know, we can hide our discontentment in our prayer requests. Have you ever heard anybody do this? “[desperately] Let me tell you what to pray for me!” And then we just pour out all of our complaints as prayer requests. What if we said, “My life feels really hard right now, and my heart is really hard right now. Will you pray that the Lord would suit my heart to my circumstance? Would you pray that He would give me contentment even if this doesn’t change?” 

What if we asked for that? Isn’t that bigger? Again, don’t desire less, desire more. Desire that He would fit you to your circumstances. Be willing to confess freely with those in your life.

And then the Lord is going to start to change our lives. When we repent and believe, He is going to cultivate contentment. It’s kind of like when you go and talk to your doctor and say, “Okay, I’ve got to lose weight. How do I do it?” 

“Eat right and exercise.” 

And I’m going to tell you, if you want to fight for contentment, you come to the doctor and you want the new diet pill that’s going to get you there. And I’m going to tell you, “Read your Bible, study your Bible, obey your Bible, and pray for Jesus to change you.” 

That’s where it’s found. That’s where life is found. Jesus is where life is found. Don’t neglect Him, and we will be content women! Let me pray.

Father, Lord, we know we need You. Lord, we think too highly of ourselves, we think too highly of what we know, and we live like Heaven does not rule. So, Lord, we pray that You would reign in our hearts, that You would take over places where we are bitter or discontent or upset or angry.

Lord, You would help us to live freely. Let us be abiding women. Let us be women who have the promises from Your Word so hidden in our hearts that we can proclaim them to ourselves and to one another day after day after day as we walk before the watching world with deep hope. Help us be those women! Lord, we love You, we know that Heaven rules. Let us live like it. It’s in Your name we pray, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.