A Trusting Heart

Dannah Gresh: Contentment comes from a heart of faith. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It’s that faith that pleases God. Do you want to please God with your life? Then God will put you in circumstances where you cannot see the outcome, you cannot see the reason, it makes no sense. You just have to trust.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for November 14, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

Nancy: We’re looking at how to cultivate a contented heart, and we’re looking at characteristics of a contented heart. In the last session, we saw that a contented heart is a thankful heart, learning to recognize and express appreciation for the blessings of God.

I would just encourage you again to take time on a daily basis to say, “Thank You, Lord,” and to list for God the specific blessings that He’s brought into your life that so many times we just take for granted or we bypass.

Sometimes I wonder if God only did for me the things that I thank Him for, how many blessings would I have down the road? If He didn’t do anything more for me than what I’ve already thanked Him for, would I have a blessed or a deprived life down the road?

A contented heart is a grateful, thankful heart. We want to see next that a contented heart is also a trusting heart. It’s a heart that trusts God’s character, trusts God’s providence, trusts God’s plan and knows that whatever God does is good.

A lady wrote to me and she said, “I’ve been discontented in my family life, in particular with my husband and what I think he should be doing in our family.”

This is an area, by the way, of discontent for many women. It’s a dangerous trap to fall into. It’s a dangerous habit that many women develop and don’t even realize they’ve developed this habit—having expectations within the homefront that are not fulfilled.

Let me just say, by the way, there is no husband that God ever created who will be the perfect husband. There’s no husband who can meet all the expectations of his wife. And, by the way, there’s no such thing as a perfect wife who can meet all of her husband’s expectations either.

So God knew what you needed when He selected that husband for you, and God is intending to use even his rough edges to help shape and mold you. But when you focus on the ways your husband or your children or your parents do not meet your expectations, you’re going to find yourself frustrated.

This lady went on to say, “My lack of contentment shows that I do not trust God and His provision. I have been reminded that my husband is God’s perfect choice for me, and I need to trust that He knows what He is doing in my life.”

That is such a simple statement, but it’s what life comes back to—believing that God knows what He is doing in our lives.

Someone has said that God’s will is exactly what we would choose if we knew what God knows. Now, we don’t know what God knows. That’s what makes Him God and us not. But when we are in eternity with the Lord and we stand looking back on this life, we will have a perspective that we can’t have now. We will see from that eternal heavenly perspective, “Yes! God knew exactly what He as doing. He didn’t make any mistakes. There was a tapestry He was weaving. There was a path He was leading on, and it was right. It was good. And, yes, if I’d been God, I would have made exactly those same decisions, if I had known then what I know now.”

We can’t see all that now. We don’t have that total perspective, and we won’t have it in this life. So we have to trust what we cannot see, and it’s that faith that pleases God. You want to please God with your life? Then God will put you in circumstances where you cannot see the outcome; you cannot see the reason; it makes no sense. You’ve just got to trust, and a trusting heart will ultimately be a contented heart.

I was very struck a few years ago by a series of articles that ran in my local paper. One particular article in this series had the following headline. It said: “Love, Honor, Commitment: The Baby that Cancer Threatened Is Born”

Todd Stilson is a medical doctor who lives in our area. His wife Jane was a pharmacist. Early in her second pregnancy, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening form of breast cancer. The doctors advised her to abort the baby in order to fight Jane’s cancer. She knew that if she did not abort the baby, then her own life expectancy would be very short.

The couple said the easiest decision they faced in this whole process was the decision that they could not abort this baby. They refused in spite of the medical counsel they had been given. Both of them doctors, knowing the outcome, likely. They believed that the pregnancy as well as the cancer was from God, and they would accept them both. This particular article written right after her baby was born expressed this couple’s trust in God’s will and His plan for their lives.

Let me read you some of what they said. The article said:

This couple prays that God will intervene either through science or supernatural power, but they are prepared to accept an answer of no. "We trust in the providence of the Lord," Todd said quietly.

The couple has had their moments of fear and sadness, but "in the midst of the pain and suffering, there can be genuine peace," he said. "This story is much bigger than us," said Todd. "This story is what God is doing in our lives. My desire is that when people see us, it will make them want to know the God that we serve. Jane and I will come and go," Todd said. "People come and go. But the Lord doesn’t. He’s eternal. He’s forever."

Seven months later, shortly before Jane did go to be with the Lord, another article was run in which Todd said,

"We believe that God is in control, and He hasn’t made a mistake. It wasn’t a mistake that Jane was pregnant, and it wasn’t a mistake that she has breast cancer. We’re going to trust Him."

“God has His promises,” Jane said. “He’s never forsaken His people.”

Both Stilsons are in good spirits and remain very upbeat when talking about life. Depression, like an abortion, just doesn’t seem to be an option.

“When we found the cancer had spread to the bones, that was a very big blow,” Jane said. “They medically can’t cure me. That was the biggest letdown, but I’m not depressed. The Lord has been my strength.”

She admits, “We were very disappointed, and we cried [when they received this report], but I knew we had to go forward. I claimed God’s Word, and that gave me a lot of peace. He’s in full control of the situation,” she said. “It’s really out of my hands, and it requires me to have total dependence on Him.”

You know what the fact is? It all is out of our hands anyway. You and I try so hard to control, and we women are born controllers. We want to have everything fixed and operating right and under our management and control, but the fact is, we can’t control it. You can keep your child right at your fingertips, but you cannot control that child’s health, that child’s development and temperament and character. Ultimately, we are dependent for our very breath on God.

A contented heart is a heart that comes out of a trust that God knows what He’s doing and that God doesn’t make mistakes. As the psalmist said, “God is good, and everything He does is good.”

So a contented heart is a thankful heart, it’s trusting heart, and it’s a surrendered and submissive heart.

Now, that’s not a word that comes easily to us, but if we want to have a heart of contentment, then we have to have a surrendered, submissive heart. That’s the heart that says, “Lord, this is not what I would have chosen if I’d been God, but I’m not God. I recognize that, and if it pleases You, it pleases me. If this what You believe is best? Then I just say, ‘Yes, Lord. I surrender to it. Not my will, but Your will be done.’”

That’s really where we go to the cross, when our will crosses the will of God. We lay down our own will, and we say, “I don’t have to have it my way. Deep in my heart, what I really want is to have it God’s way.”

 

I’ve learned a lot about the beauty of a surrendered, submissive heart by some of Elisabeth Elliot’s writings. Let me read to you from her book, Keep a Quiet Heart, what she has to say about this whole matter of complaining versus submission. She says:

Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son. The things about which we are tempted to complain may be the very answer to our prayer to be made like Jesus.

Then she lists what some of those may be:

A headache, an insult, a long line at the checkout, [You know, it doesn’t take much to get some of us going.] someone’s rudeness or failure to say, “Thank you,” misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption.

As Amy Carmichael said, "See in it a chance to die,” meaning a chance to leave self behind and say, "yes," to the will of God, to be conformable unto His death—not a morbid, martyr complex, but a peaceful and happy contentment in the assurance that goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives.

Then she follows up with this little, but I think important point:

Wouldn’t our children learn godliness if they saw in us the example of contentment instead of complaint, acceptance instead of rebellion, and peace instead of frustration?

Remember, as you choose to trust, to choose, to submit, to give thanks, you’re not only determining your own peace level versus frustration, but you’re in large measure impacting the lives of your children who are learning how to respond to life’s difficulties and challenges.

Dannah: You’re listening to Revive Our Hearts, with our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She’s in the middle of a series on "Cultivating a Heart of Contentment." She’ll be back with more in a bit.

Discontentment is a heart condition that is never satisfied. The Bible refers to it as covetousness. That’s something Erin Davis talked with Melissa Kruger about. Melissa’s the author of a book on contentment, titled The Envy of Eve: Finding Contentment in a Covetous World. They had this conversation in the setting of a conference resource center, so you’ll hear voices in the background. Here’s Erin Davis, in conversation with Melissa Kruger.

 

Erin Davis: You dedicate the second half of the book to kind of these categories of coveting, and I thought that was helpful (maybe that’s because I’m a type AA personality: I like lists I can check!). Let’s just walk through them.

You talk about coveting money and possessions, and you give this list in the book that I think is so helpful (I’m just going to read through it) of different truths we might believe:

• Money equals security.
• Money equals happiness.
• Money equals relational peace (if we could just get our bank account filled our marriage wouldn’t be strained, our children would get along—whatever).
• Money equals comfort.
• Money equals respect.
• Money equals pleasure.
• Money equals experiences.
• Money equals possessions.
• Money equals reward.

And then you flipped it with what happens if you replace that word “money” with “knowing God,” and I thought that was so powerful! Because:

• Knowing God equals security.
• Knowing God equals happiness.
• Knowing God equals peace.
• Knowing God equals respect. 

I think that is helpful as we try to explore, “Am I coveting money or possessions?” or “What do I think will finally make me happy?” Is it a higher salary . . . or whatever? Do I think that some thing or dollar amount will make me happy? And you give the example of Judas as someone who coveted money and possessions.

Melissa Kruger: Yes. I had never really traced his whole story, and these little hints of it are in the Gospels. He was the keeper of the money bag, and he had quietly been taking money from it. His big frustration, the moment of what happened before he went to the Chief Priest, was when Mary came in with that alabaster jar that was worth a whole year’s wages. She breaks it on Jesus’ feet, worshiping Him, preparing Him for His burial—and he is angry! “Couldn’t that money be given to the poor!?” This is his question that he is asking. You see, he knows exactly how much that costs, and he is concerned it did not go in his money bag!

That is what prompts him to go to the Chief Priest and give Jesus up. So he looks for these coins—and he misses the Treasure! It’s what we so often can do. He had the Treasure of the Ages before him, and he missed it all for thirty silver coins. 

Erin: I think about those of us who live in affluent America, and “more, more, more” never satisfies—and it didn’t for Judas, either. I believe Judas was riddled with tremendous regret. I don’t know if he repented, but certainly he had tremendous regret.He ended up giving back the money he thought would satisfy. It didn’t satisfy.

Melissa: Exactly. It didn’t. It didn’t satisfy. And that’s the thing: There are plenty of famous people who have gotten all that money can provide. Why do they turn to drugs? Why do they turn to relationship after relationship after relationship? They are looking for something that is not being satisfied by money.

If money could have satisfied us, it would have been a lot less painful than the cross! God could have just given us a lot of money, and He chose instead to give His Son.

Erin: Can you give one practical action step to the woman listening who thinks: It’s money. Where I covet is money or possessions. I know there’s no easy fix—I’m not asking for that—but what’s one thing she can do?

Melissa: Often I go back to the simple answer that’s often the hard answer—is to pray and praise. I would say giving thanks for the things God has given us actually reminds our hearts that they came from Him anyway.

When we pray, even thanking God for our meal, it reminds us, “This meal wasn’t a right. This was a gift from God.” A lot of us (not everyone) live with pantries full; we’re kind of trying to clear them out, because we’ve got stuff that we probably shouldn’t be eating in them. I do.

But the reality is, many people in the world don’t have that. Taking the time to be thankful for the things we have, rather than always focusing on what we don’t have . . . I think that type of attitude really glorifies God. It says, “I’m thankful for what I have,” and it breeds contentment in our heart about possessions.

Erin: Don’t you love how little children pray? “Thank You for my puppy, and thank You for my grandma, and thank You for my teddy bear, and thank You for my bed.” It’s simple and adorable, but I think also—maybe—keeps envy from digging down as deeply into their hearts.

Melissa: That’s right. Being thankful, I think, is one of the biggest antidotes for this.

Erin: Yep, good place to start! Then you address the category of coveting in romantic relationships, and you use David—the poster child for this. And you trace that pattern of “see, want, take, hide.” Can you trace that for us, in David’s life?

Melissa: He saw Bathsheba. Here’s a man who had a lot of wives, but he saw her—she was beautiful. He clearly lusted after her because he saw her bathing, so I’m assuming it was probably pretty lustful.

He coveted her, he took her—and he knew she was married to someone else. Then when he got caught (because Uriah was at war, and so Bathsheba shouldn’t be pregnant—and she gets pregnant), he hides by killing Uriah—putting him on the front lines. So we see this direct pattern.

I think one of the best things about the world we live in, where you feel like anybody could be videoing anything at all times, is it is a subtle reminder that all our actions are seen. There really is no hiding. It feels more so in our world today; you feel like “big brother” is always watching somewhere! 

But that’s a helpful reminder that God really does see us. He sees all the things we think we’re hiding, and it’s helpful just to be reminded of that. He sees if we’re having an emotional affair with another man—even if we never do anything.

He sees what’s going on in our heart—not in a way that He’s going to strike us down with lightning—but in a way that we can go to Him and confess. There’s no fear there, because He already knows.

Erin: It doesn’t have to be an affair. You gave this example, which I so resonated with: you’re in church, and there’s this couple in front of you with this sweet new baby. The husband just puts his arm around the wife in an affectionate way, and you felt covetousness rise up in you.

Melissa: I was like, “Look at them! They love each other so sweetly! My husband never puts his arm around me! What’s wrong with me?” Rather than just accepting, “That’s not us, and that’s okay.”

You see that somebody else’s husband brought roses, or flowers, “just because.” And you’re thinking, Do we have a ‘just because’ day in our marriage? Or romantic comedies, I think, can be the worst for us women sometimes.

Erin: I agree, or a lot of books that are out there. Then you go home and you fight with your wonderful husband because he doesn’t meet some expectation! (Or at least I do; I don’t know if you do.)

Melissa: Yes, exactly. “You do not act like Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail—"So you must not love me!" And he’s like, “When did this fight begin!? Did I miss something?”

Erin: “What are we talking about here?”

How do you create a new pattern if you gravitate toward coveting in romantic relationships?

Melissa: I think for this one, it is cultivating and keeping our relationship with Jesus the first thing in our lives. He alone can bear the weight of what we need. I need so much more, relationally, than my husband can provide. He is never going to be enough, and if I want him to be enough, I am never going to enjoy him.

So cultivating that relationship with the Lord through the Word and prayer, remembering how deeply loved I am by Him. For me, that’s the only way to not put more on other relationships.

Erin: That’s good. The third category is coveting within family and friendships, and you use the example of Joseph—really Joseph’s brothers. Show us that pattern you’ve been illustrating for us in Joseph’s life.

Melissa: Joseph’s brothers saw that he had gotten this lovely new coat of colors, and they knew what it represented . . .

Erin: Favor!

Melissa: Yes, they knew that Joseph was the favored brother. So they coveted, they wanted it. They took their brother and put him in a pit and sold him into slavery. And then, how did they hide it? They got that coat; they drenched it in blood, and they said wild animals had come after their brother.

Erin: They destroyed the thing that ignited their covetousness. They didn’t even wear the coat!

Melissa: Exactly. And isn’t that the interesting thing? None of them got the favor; all they got was a broken-hearted father. It shows that they all wanted the same thing. But, then, you’ve got to wonder if they’re all a little bit concerned: “What if I become the new favored child? Are they going to throw me in a pit, too?” It’s not like it went well!

Erin: It had to have fractured their family. It was a normal family, with layers of dysfunction like we all have, but it had to have caused that fracture to just be deeper, and the chasm to be harder to cross.

Melissa: That’s right. And I think we do that when we place too much emphasis on what our families should look like, what those relationships should bring to us. It can really cause a lot of pain and brokenness, because we act out around each other.

Erin: You talk several times in the book that sometimes covetousness—often—is born out of an okay desire, and then the desire gets out of control. So I’m wondering, specifically to family and friendship, what is it that we as women crave (and sometimes that’s an okay desire) that can turn into covetousness.

Melissa: I think we crave community, which we were created to be in. God saw Adam—it wasn’t good that he was alone—so He created Eve. We’re not alone as people in the church. We need a body, and He actually relates it to family language.

Paul talked about sons in the faith, and we have brothers in the faith—and we have mothers and sisters and children in the faith. That’s normal language, familial language. We’re created to need relationships from one another. That’s a good thing.

Once again, it’s similar to the romantic. When we start wanting those people to care for us enough, love us enough, fulfill us enough, we’re going to always come back to find discontentment growing in our heart—because they just can’t satisfy. 

They can’t know. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that moment (I have) when you wonder, Does anybody know I’m hurting? How could they? They’re not omniscient; they can’t know everything like God can. But God can always know.

But we expect our friends to know. I do this terribly with my husband: “Don’t you know exactly what I need, when I need it, every time?”

Erin: And we want them to know it without us telling them.

Melissa: Exactly! Because if I tell you, that takes the whole steam out of it. It’s like, “You have to magically know!”

Erin: Right, and the same with our friends. I think every woman (I can’t speak to men) feels like, at times, Nobody’s thinking of me! Nobody cares about what I’m going through! And that may or may not be true; probably most often it’s not. But they don’t know that you’re struggling, they can’t know. 

Another category of coveting that I want to touch on is giftedness and abilities. I think that hits below the belt for a lot of us in the church, but it’s good. We love that God’s given us gifts. We love that He’s given us abilities, but it gets twisted into coveting. I wonder how you’ve seen that in your own life or in women’s lives.

Melissa: Yes, I definitely have. When I see someone sing beautifully up front—I mean, I do not have that gift. It’s so obvious that I don’t have that gift, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s a wonderful gift! It seems joyful. They seem so happy when they’re singing!”

And yet, I think sometimes we can look at positions that are more up front or “out there,” and we think, Oh, wow, that must be amazing to be in that position. But the reality is, God’s gifted us all differently, and every part of the body is just as important as the others—even though some you see more often—those other parts have vital importance in the life of the church.

And I think what it really is, we think of them as our own rather than just thinking of them as gifts. That’s the real crux.

Erin: Romans 12 teaches us that our gifts are for the good of all; they’re not ours to hoard. If I tend towards an area of covetousness, it’s this—other people’s gifts and abilities. But as I trace it to the root of unbelief, I see that I don’t really believe 1 Corinthians 12—which is that all parts are necessary. I don’t really believe that the workers are few and the harvest is ready.

If I really believed those things, I could just celebrate every gift you have and every gift she has and every gift she has because it’s all for the good of the body. It’s all essential, and the harvest is ready and the workers are few.

I think to that woman who’s struggling with coveting another woman’s gift, those are the passages that I would drive her to. Would you have anything to add there?

Melissa: I would say, one thing that really helps me is that when I see you succeed, I say to myself, That’s my team! You winning is me winning!”—because we’re in the same body. Therefore, I can really rejoice with them, because we’re winning together—we’re winning the kingdom, and I love that!

When I see someone succeeding in the faith, it’s the gospel—it’s the kingdom going forward! So it’s really saying I’m not a kingdom player when I want it just to be me leading the kingdom in some ways. The ultimately reality is, it’s all pointing to God’s glory. So it shows I’m really seeking my own glory.

Dannah: We’ve been listening to a conversation between Erin Davis and Melissa Kruger. Melissa’s the author of The Envy of Eve: Finding Contentment in a Covetous World. You’ll find more information about her book, linked in the transcript of today’s program at ReviveOurHearts.com, or on the Revive Our Hearts app.

Melissa just mentioned the kingdom of God, and His glory. As Nancy might say, “Heaven rules!” That truth is something we need to remind ourselves of often. We can do that in a lot of different ways, but one of them is by hanging up our 2023 Heaven Rules Calendar! This calendar has some beautiful pictures taken by our very own Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, along with encouraging Bible verses and quotes from Nancy’s book Heaven Rules. So, do you have a favorite spot for a calendar? I know exactly where I’m going to hang mine. I keep my calendar on my desk, just to look at it now and then and be inspired. I just page through it from time to time throughout the year. Wherever you put yours, I know you'll be encouraged by it.

You can get a copy of the Heaven Rules 2023 Wall Calendar when you make a donation of any amount at ReviveOurHearts.com, or when you call 1-800-569-5959. Request your calendar when you call.

Well, we’ve seen that a contented heart is a thankful heart, a trusting heart, and tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, Nancy shows us that a contented heart is a God-centered heart. I hope you don’t miss tomorrow’s episode. Now, here’s Nancy with a final thought.

Nancy: As you think about the circumstances, the challenges, the difficulties that you’re facing in your life right now, they’re very real. They may not seem major to anyone else, but they’re major to you. I see tears in some eyes as we talk about these things. They hurt. They’re painful. But I want to ask, do you have a trusting heart? Do you have a heart that believes God knows what He is doing? Get to know Him. Get into His Word. Find out His character, His grace, His love, and you will see from the Word of God that God has a plan. He's not asleep on the job. He's not overlooking your situation.

Can you say, "Lord, I trust that You know what You are doing.

Then, have you come to the point of submitting your will to God's will in that issue? Saying, "Lord, honestly, this is not what I would have chosen if I was writing the script. But I'm not writing the script; You are. Whatever You want, if this is part of Your will and Your plan for me at this season of my life, I accept it. I embrace it. I welcome it, and I know that it is part of what is necessary in my life for me to become like Jesus.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to a life of faith, freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NIV84. 

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