Conversations on the Psalms: Melissa Kruger and Psalm 131 (Contentment) - Episode 3 | Word First

hi everyone thanks for um joining us for another installment of conversations on the psalms and today i have um a good friend melissa kruger here to talk about something that i'm sure we all struggle with i know i struggle with to talk about contentment and particularly psalm 131 and so i want melissa to go ahead and just introduce yourself to us and then we'll get started hey there um my name is melissa and um i am married to mike who is president of rts charlotte reformed theological seminary um and he teaches new testament and we have three kids um a 19 year old a 16 year old and a 13 year old and i work at the gospel coalition doing our women's initiatives thank you well um i'm sure um i hope that if anyone has not read your book on contentment um the envy of you i hope they'll go out and get it because it really it was one of those books that made me be like oh i did not know i struggled with that part of contentment either so i hope it this is a plug for that that uh that if you find yourself being encouraged about what melissa is saying to go out and get that book because it really it really convicted me in really good ways and um so yeah so it's a good it's a really helpful resource but um today first i have a couple of questions that we kind of asked everyone to start out and the first one is how have you seen the psalms minister to you in times of joy and in times of pain i think for me one of the biggest ways um is that they've helped me see that emotions in general are okay like i think sometimes we can even believe that contentment is just this even keelness um whereas when you see the psalms you see david rejoicing in the lord and being joyful you see him mourning the depths of a sin you see him fearful because a band of army angry men are attacking him i mean you see he took all the emotions he felt before the lord and so i think that's one of the biggest encouragements for me is that my emotions aren't wrong they can lead me to do wrong things but my emotions are just the experience of living on this earth and i can take whatever those emotions are to the lord and cry out to him and i think that's what they encouraged me you see this whole range and i love that yeah it's super encouraging i think if you're a more emotional person which i tend to be a more emotional person or if you're a person who maybe isn't super in touch with their emotions i think it really helps shape on both ends of that spectrum um so as you think about the psalms is there one in particular that has ministered to you um throughout your life that you can think of in particular i think probably one that i returned to time and time again is psalm 27. um it says the lord is my light my salvation whom shall i fear the lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall be afraid and then it goes through all these you know seek the lord and it goes through and it ends i believe i will still see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living um and i just love it because it's this it shows the lord to be this anchor um who do i have to fear if the lord is my light and my salvation and so it's always whatever i'm facing um it's this anchor point of yes he's my anchor and i still believe i'll see the goodness of the lord in the landing of the living take heart yeah it's this is wonderfully encouraging psalm um whether we're fearful or sad or um unsure or in a waiting season it's just great encouragement that's one of my favorites that's that line that i believe i'll see the goodness of the lord in the land of living has been when i've come back to over and over again like in suffering um and it's one that i've just prayed prayed that lord the lord lord you said that i you've said i will see your goodness and so just ask the lord to give me eyes to see that that's true so i love that one a lot um and i send it to people a lot as well whenever they're walking through it's one of those ones that is just it's so good and like you said it's an anchor which i i just love um so contentment is really i feel like contentment's a perennial a perennial issue i was telling daniel i didn't think i struggled with contentment over our house because i like our house um and i've been running in a different neighborhood and i'm like oh i really like all that like we're probably not gonna move out of this house like we like this house and so it suits our needs so i'm like oh like what is wrong with me i didn't think i struggled with contentment in that area and then it just kind of bubbles up in me um so how can psalm 131 um charles spurgeon calls it the shortest psalm but the longest one to learn or yeah the longest one to learn which i think is so true um how can psalm 131 help uh us learn contentment what are some things we can take away from psalm 131 that help us yeah i love how it begins oh lord my heart is not lifted up my eyes are not raised too high i do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me and it it it's interesting i think there is something and even in the book of the envy aviva talk about this notion of it's this pattern that coveting can take and i would say coveting is kind of the opposite of contentment it's see come take and hide but it starts with scene and so you know i think often our eyes can see a vision of their they're longing for this perfect reality and there's something in us that's made for that it's a right longing um i think we just want my husband calls it an overreact eschatology yes yes heaven here right and when we have a wrong view of what this world can give us when we apply promises of scripture that are meant for heaven to this earth we always are going to find ourselves battling with discontentment and i think our eyes are raised too high in some sense so they're looking at what we can imagine our life to be or what we hope for it to be rather than really looking to the lord and saying you know you promised in this world we'd have tribulation but you chose to take heart because you've overcome it that's a very different looking like jesus we're trusting him for contentment because this world's broken um and so having an over-realized view of what this world should give me is often the foundation of my discontent yeah that's so helpful i hadn't it's a constant conversation that my husband and i have because he often say i think i think you're wanting heaven now um and i think that's why you are always struggling with it not being enough um and so i think we had never put it in those categories but i do think that that is so much of the root of our discontentment you see in kids too um and not in them wanting perfection or things like that when we can't have that right now so i think that's that's a really helpful takeaway from psalm 131 um so as someone to kind of last question for someone maybe who is in a season of discontentment so who's who's struggling with with what their i see who's coveting um what their neighbor has or the mom moment social media has or whatever well last year when we could go out to dinner and do like normal things like yeah you know i found myself i know and i'm like i'm like that was school like i love our kids school and i love all the things we do at school and i had this like morning of like this is not how school starts i know and so yeah i mean i think that's even a struggle with contentment so i it just is such an issue even though it's a perennial issue it is one that we are so struggling with i think in greater magnitude right now so for the person struggling with contentment right now what would you say to them how would you encourage them yeah well i would say there there's a side one one first thing we don't have to squash our the reality that there are things to mourn um you know my my daughter was supposed to spend her summer in indonesia doing mission work she spent it working at chick-fil-a you know like there are things that we mourn and they're good things like you know it's a great thing she wanted to go and do that there are things we mourn um i think contentment looks like um that that wonderful paradox where paul writes about that he's sorrowful yet rejoicing he's poor yet making many rich you know he he has nothing but he possesses all things and so to me contentment is not the absence of sorrow it's not the absence of hardship it's not the absence and nor is it not even acknowledging those things yeah when you really read through paul's letters he acknowledged playing times we were shipwrecked i was beaten and you know he's saying hey these are hard things but what he could also say at the same time was that the reality of who christ was and his strength in him allowed him to be content in all those things when he said i can do all things to christ who strengthens me he was talking about contentment not climbing like mount everest and yeah and so in some sense it is the very reality that things are hard that means contentment is internal and wells up from something god is doing not external and i i think one thing i would encourage anyone struggling with discontentment don't spend a lot of your time trying to get your external circumstances sorted they're always going to be fallen and broken spend time fellowshipping with jesus and praying and asking him that he would give you contentment he is the owner of it he is the one who can give it to you and he is the one who by reflecting on him in time with him can change us i think too often i i spend time trying to get it outwardly and think it will change me inwardly and i think that the real message of scripture says that that's an n word an inward fount you know psalm 1 is such a beautiful picture of of a person who's content who is like a tree planted by a stream of water and whatever he does is prospering why not because the tree and of itself is because it's plain about the stream and so the more we're rooted in abiding in christ we can expect that his fruit will be born in our lives but it's never going to happen apart from him and it's never going to be happen by getting external things sorted out it's kind of like taking a barren tree and going and tying a bunch of fruit on it yeah it may work but it's not really content right and so i think we you know we can see someone else's world and think wow they look like they've cut it all together and it might just be tied on fruit um and so i think i think we go to the lord and that's where we seek it oh that's so helpful that's really helpful i think i find myself trying to change the externals all the time like if i can just get a better schedule if we can just have a little bit more downtime if we can you know that i would feel something differently and i think that's it's a a corrective we always need is that it's not going to happen in the externals the externals are changing and jesus is unchanging and so we need to root ourselves in what's unchanging or who is unchanging so that's good thank you so much for encouraging us towards contentment um both during covid and all of the time so i appreciate it thanks for joining me today oh thanks for having me it's a it's a definitely a season to talk about yeah there could be a whole book content kind of i mean if there's a lot there's a lot in this season oh it is it's it's like one big long struggle with contentment and struggle with mourning like you were saying in grief i mean yeah it's been a it's been a wild ride 20-20 times well thank you so much thanks it's been so fun to get to chat yeah it has i've enjoyed it i've been looking forward to it all day