Contentment & Things Too Wonderful - Joyfully Pressing On

My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.

But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. 

Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131

I’ll just come right out and say it: I have not learned the secret to being content. My 44 year-old soul still gets restless and worked up and sometimes I fret. Paul learned to be content (Philippians 4:11-13). I am learning. 

But I had no plan to write about contentment. Until God about knocked me out with his word on a sunset walk. 

So here goes. 

My Restless Soul

It is one of the shortest Psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn. C.H. Spurgeon said that about Psalm 131. He’s right.

I spent a lot of time focused on the three verses of Psalm 131 last week, the first of which is:

My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with things too great or too wonderful for me.

It’s the second half that grabbed me- not that I’ve got the pride thing all under control- only that I struggled with the meaning of too wonderful. Other versions use the phrase, too profound, or too high. It means “things that are extraordinary; things that are miraculous or astonishing; things that are beyond the bounds of human powers or understanding; inaccessible wonders; things we can’t possibly figure out.”

Reasons my reason can’t grasp.

Old-time Bible commentator Matthew Henry helped me here. He wrote,

It is our wisdom, and will be our praise, to keep within our sphere, and not to intrude into things which we have not seen, or meddle with that which does not belong to us.

I’ll admit, my soul has been a bit vexed and stirred up this week because of a decision made that does concern me but that I was uninvolved in making. I was not content. The reasons for the choice did not sit well with me.

But to decide was not “within my sphere.” I was not on that team.

Not Consulted and Not Content

Can you relate? Can you think of a time when you were not consulted and you certainly would have consulted you? A time when you felt put out that your sage insight was not sought out?

You have? You’re in good company, because I think this trigger to discontent is universal. It goes back at least as far as Job, who experts say may have lived around 2000 BC. So we’re talking 6,000 years of ruffled, restless spirits wanting to meddle outside their spheres.

Granted, Job had a lion’s share of loss. I won’t rehash that, only to say that even patient Job wasn’t perfect. His soul got stirred up.

Job started with a calm heart, but then he began to ask God and his friends the questions that come flooding in. Why questions like:

Why me, why this, why now, why?

Things Too Wonderful

But, to the point of this post, after God challenged Job with no less than 55 rapid-fire, questions to put Job back in his “sphere,” he uses the same word- wonderful– to confess and repent of his restless discontent.  

It’s in the final chapter of Job, chapter 42, verse 3: 

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 

If Job could say this after his children and wealth and health were taken from him, surely I can say it in lesser things. Surely after I’ve thought and prayed and researched and called the proper authority- who graciously heard me out and explained why “we’re moving in a different direction” -surely, I can rest, right?

Squawking Like A Fussy Child

Wrong. My soul was not at rest. It was not, to quote verse 2, “like a weaned child with its mother.” It was more like a squawky, squirmy 10 month-old year old, rooting and restless in his mother’s lap. I was not free from what “nagging self-seeking.” 

Because our minds- or at least my mind- dials back. I wondered why my opinion wasn’t sought? Because I wasn’t on the team. But then I wondered why I wasn’t on the team that decided? Why, why, why?

I won’t tell you how far I dialed back, but it was more than five cause-effect loops deep. 

Then, as is my custom, I went for a walk. It wasn’t till the home stretch they I stowed my phone and recited Psalm 131. And listened. At the last line of that first verse, the Good Lord stopped me cold. 

Hold up, Abigail. Listen to my word you quote. Listen. Stop squirming. You’ve made your case. It’s not your concern. This issue is too wonderful for you. I have my reasons. Let it be. 

God has his reasons. Be meek. Look past the “second causes,” the human decision makers- I told myself– and let it be. 

Hoping When You Don’t Know Why

Ten years ago next month my niece Hope was born. By the time my sister began to labor, Hope was already with Jesus. Grief comes in waves and life is never the same. My nieces and nephew talk about their sister Hope who’s in heaven. It still hurts. 

But.

But Danielle and Andy know. They know that the LORD will swallow up death forever and wipe away tears from all faces (Isaiah 25:8). They know that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (2 Cor. 5:4). And they know– intimately and in real life and real time know- the God of hope (Romans 15:13). 

But there’s one big thing they don’t know.

Contentment: When You Don’t Know Why

They don’t know why. God didn’t consult them 10 years ago, and I don’t believe he’s told them since. But they rest content.

Vaneetha Risner isn’t a personal friend, but she’s endured “unspeakable, unexpected, and preventable,” loss. And she has learned contentment.

While I thought that freedom would be found in answers, true freedom was actually found in surrender. I didn’t need to figure it out. It didn’t need to make sense to me. I didn’t need to understand the details. I just needed to trust God. Trust him because he is infinitely wiser, more loving, and more purposeful than I am.

God is infinitely more purposeful than any of us. And he always has a reason. He’s probably got many, because, He alone knows all the facts.

John Piper says, God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.

Or none.

By faith, we believe there are reasons. Good reasons. Believing there are good reasons for thwarted plans and for huge, unspeakable losses tends toward contentment. 

We must trust that they are simply too wonderful for us. Even if we can’t name a single one. 

Thy Will Be Done

Someone once said, God’s will is what you’d want if you knew all the facts. I like that. In the months and years since Hope’s birth, my sister and her husband did wonder why. We all wondered why. No test or doctor could explain why they couldn’t know Hope this side of heaven. Too wonderful, I guess.

Andy and Danielle learned contentment. They stilled and quieted their souls. They’re are not “concerned” with things too high, or wonderful for them. They released the need to know why baby Hope died, the “nagging self-seeking, and said “Thy will be done.” 

For instance, when you wish, and by every means endeavor, to be well, and yet remain ill, – then say, “Thy will be done.” When you undertake something and your undertaking does not succeed, say, “Thy will be done.” When you do good to others, and they repay you with evil, say, “Thy will be done.” Or when you would like to sleep and are overtaken by sleeplessness, say, “Thy will be done.” In general, do not become irritated when anything is not done in accordance with your will, but learn to submit in everything to the Will of the Heavenly Father.” (Father John, JOY AND STRENGTH, 7/21)

Thy will be done. In great trials, and with my “small potatoes.”

I’ve had my say and, unless I’m asked to explain, I will rest my case. Rest content and hope in the LORD.

Contentment Means Hope in the Lord

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. That’s how Psalm 131 ends. And this side of heaven I think that’s how most of our restless stories end and how contentment is restored: Hope in the Lord.

Scripture is clear on this: Those who hope in the Lord will not be disappointed (Rom. 52-5: Is. 49:23, Ps. 25:3). In the meantime, we train ourselves to stay in our lanes and our spheres, and not to concern ourselves with things too great or wonderful.

God told Job, and God told me as I recited Psalm 131, quit trying to understand. Learn contentment instead. 

[It’s] foolish to try to know all the reasons of Divine Providence—why this affliction was sent and why that, Spurgeon wrote.

When we begin asking, “Why? Oh why? Why?” what an endless task we have before us! If we become like a weaned child we shall not ask “why?” but just believe that in our heavenly Father’s dispensations there is a wisdom too deep for us to fathom.

A wisdom too deep to fathom. Too wonderful for me. 

Weaned Children Stop Asking “Why?”

I picked the picture at the top because it’s the best one I could find of me holding a freshly weaned son. Gabe was 14-months old. He was weaned when I was on jury duty, two weeks before.

Psalm 131:2 says, I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother. Weaned means being calm in God’s presence, trusting His wisdom and power and love. Weaned child = contentment. 

But this kind of contentment is not oblivious to problems and impervious to pain. It feels disappointment. It’s just that, in the end, it believes that God can see farther than we can see and knows better than we can know and that he works all things out for his children’s good . 

Contentment means leaving things outside my sphere to my Heavenly Father. When satisfying answers don’t come, it means trusting they’re too wonderful.

I am learning this.

Forgive us, Lord, our little faith;

And help us all, from morn till e’en,

Still to believe that lot the best

Which is, –not that which might have been. 

George Gray