The Emotions of Psalms Part 11: Psalm 84 – Feeling Content
Open with prayer
There once was a boy, named Nicolas, born around 1614 in France into a family with very little – no power, no riches and no land. The only thing the boy had was his parents who knew the lord. The boy grew up hearing about Christ and when he turned 18 he received a revelation from the Lord of the power of God, but around that time he was conscripted to fight in the 30 Years War, one of the bloodiest conflicts Europe had ever experienced between France, Spain, Sweden, the Habsburgs, and numerous German states. Armies moved through towns and countrysides, bringing famine, disease, destruction, and enormous civilian casualties. His home region of Lorraine was devastated, he was captured during the fighting, and he eventually suffered a serious injury that left him disabled for the rest of his life. He explains his walk with Christ at that time like this:
“In the deep of winter, I looked at a barren tree, stripped of leaves and fruit, waiting silently and patiently for the sure hope of summer abundance. Gazing at the tree, I grasped for the first time, the extravagance of God’s grace and the unfailing sovereignty of divine providence.
Like the tree, I myself was seemingly dead, but God had life waiting for me, and the turn of seasons would bring fullness. At that moment, I said, that leafless tree ‘first flashed in upon my soul the fact of God,’ and a love for God that never ceased to burn.
I want us to stay with this young man for a moment, because at this point in his life he knows about God. He has grown up hearing about Christ. He believes God is real. He has even had this moment where, looking at that barren tree, something about the power and providence of God has become real to him. But he still has an entire life ahead of him in which he is going to have to decide what that knowledge will actually mean to him.
And I think many of us can relate to that. There is a difference between knowing that God exists and learning how to actually live as though God is enough. There is a difference between knowing truths about Him and actively trusting Him. Trusting him with what we have, what we do not have, what we can give, and even with the season of life that we are currently in.
That barren tree gives us a picture of the tension I want us to think about today. It had no fruit in that moment. It had no leaves. From the outside, it could have looked empty. But its story was not finished. Winter was a season, not its identity. There was still life there, and there was still growth ahead.
That is where contentment becomes so important. Biblical contentment is not looking at where we are and deciding that nothing should ever change. It is learning to trust God in the season we are in while still allowing Him to grow us into what He intends us to become. It is being humble and accepting in what we have and what we have to give at any given moment.
And that same tension—the tension of being satisfied in God while still longing for more of Him is all throughout Psalm 84. Before we walk through what the Psalm says about that kind of contentment, I want to first look at who wrote it, because when we understand their story and their role in the house of God, some of the language they use becomes much more meaningful.
Psalm Context
This psalm is not attributed to David, like many of the psalms are, but to the sons of Korah.
The sons of Korah were descendants of Korah from the tribe of Levi, and understanding who Korah was makes this Psalm much more significant.
In Numbers 16, Korah led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Korah, gathered 250 well known leaders of Israel and challenged the authority that God had given Moses and Aaron. At the heart of Korah’s rebellion was dissatisfaction with the position God had given him. He was already a Levite. He had already been set apart for service around the tabernacle, but he was not content with that.
Moses even confronts him about this in Numbers 16 and essentially asks: Is it too small a thing that God has separated you from the rest of Israel and brought you near to Himself to serve Him? Korah had been given an incredible privilege, but instead of being content and faithful with what God had entrusted to him, he wanted the position God had given someone else.
The rebellion ended severely. God judged Korah and those leading the rebellion. The earth opened beneath them, and fire consumed the 250 men who had offered incense. But Numbers 26:11 gives us this incredibly important detail: “But the sons of Korah did not die.”
And generations later, something completely different came out of Korah’s family line. Instead of rebelling against the place God had given them, his descendants became faithful servants in God’s house. The Korahites served as musicians, worship leaders, and gatekeepers connected with the temple.
That makes Psalm 84 a miraculous transformation which is what God does. Their ancestor essentially said, “The place God has given me is not enough.” But generations later, his descendants are singing, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
There is a complete reversal in the legacy.
Korah reached for a position God had not given him because what he had was not enough in his eyes.
His descendants could look at a humble position in God’s house and say, “Being here with God is more than enough.”
And that is an incredible picture of the contentment we are going to see throughout Psalm 84.
2. Introduction: What Contentment Is and Is Not
Definition: worldly Contentment is a state of happiness and satisfaction that is entirely dependent on your external circumstances.
Definition: Biblical Contentment is the ability to humbly trust in the Lord through any and all circumstances. As you delight in the Lord in greater measure, He gives you greater peace, joy, and satisfaction with what you have and what you have to give at any given moment.
Now let’s open the Word to hear it from Psalm 84. Read along with me.
My Soul Longs for the Courts of the Lord
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith.[a] A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.
84
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
5
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.[b]
6
As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
7
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
8
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
9
Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
10
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
12
O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
Now what we really want to hone in on this psalm is the feeling of contentment running through it. Let’s look at it a couple verses at a time…
3. The Soul That Longs for God
Psalm 84:1-2 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
The first thing we need to see here is how truly amazing the dwelling place of the Lord is. To these men it was the thing they served and protected— the thing that gave them purpose and passion to serve the Lord.
Then we see that after acknowledging the infinite beauty of the Lord’s dwelling place, they acknowledge that it is the Lord who gives it that beauty. It doesn’t read “How lovely is this dwelling place” its “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. We’re told in scripture that Solomon’s temple was beautiful and grand, but the point is that it was infinitely beautiful because the Spirit of the Lord dwelled there.
Without him it would have been just a building. At this time our Savior had not come yet and died so the Holy Spirit had not been given to them, therefore the dwelling place of God was the temple and more specifically, it was the Holy of Holies where only the high priest of Israel was able to go. This place was only entered on the Day of Atonement and if anyone would enter other than that day they would die. It was also not a place that was able to be seen and was covered by a huge veil (big curtain). All of this can be found in Leviticus 16 if you want to learn about it, you can go there.
Now this is where we can really learn and understand how amazing we have it compared to the sons of Korah because for us, our messiah Jesus has come and he did pay the price that we never could.
The veil to the Holy of Holies has been torn! And he has poured his Spirit out for us to receive by faith and be empowered by him to do whatever he calls us to do.
1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
So with that, how lovely are we as his temple? The people the Lord knit together in our mother’s womb who knows every hair on our heads.
Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
You are worth so much and the Lord loves you so much no matter who you are or what you have done, you are still an image bearer of the Lord of hosts and he wants so much for you to be in relationship with him.
He wants you to be a temple that is inhabited by him and used by him. He wants you to become a member of his family to be his son or daughter—literal heirs with our brother and king, Jesus, who paid the price for our eternal life.
Psalm 84:1-2 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
So because we are his temples and he dwells within us we long to be with him in eternity because we know that is the finish line of our race and our inheritance. We must remember our job here is to be a temple that is used by the Lord of hosts to be his hands and feet.
We are to be a mirror that reflects his light and love to others. So we sing praises to our God because he is not dead. He rose and is seated at the right hand of the Father and his spirit is alive in us every single day. Rejoice! You are an instrument in his hand being used for his glorious purpose.
We can find true contentment knowing that we are a temple created by God, for God, and that is the greatest thing we could ever be.
By Knowing and submitting to the Lord of hosts, you are no longer a slave to fear, you are free of the things of this world and nothing can stand against you, because who can stand against the One who is within you.
Psalm 84: 3-4 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise!
You see, when we are content in knowing who we are in Christ and the purpose he has for us, there is no need for us to fear anything that we may need on this earth. Even a sparrow finds a home for its family created by our king.
Not only are we provided for in being a temple for our king but we are also blessed in doing the very thing the Lord has set before us. We are blessed because we dwell in him and we do it because we want to—not because it is a chore, but because dwelling in the Lord is a necessity to our walk. To dwell means to remain, sit, and abide.
This is not a stagnant or passive thing, but it is the ongoing action of complete submission in who we are putting our faith in—either ourselves or the Lord and it is a complete necessity to determine in every decision we make whether we are choosing ourselves in our own strength or dwelling in the Lord for our decisions.
You see, being biblically content goes hand in hand with godly delight. We see that we are not only blessed in dwelling in the Lord, but we are ever-singing our king’s praises in that blessing. It goes hand-in-hand because godly delight flows directly into biblical contentment.
Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Matt Rose, 2 weeks ago in his sermon, put it like this, “Delight is a specific kind of joy. Delight is the enjoyment of a thing simply for what or who it is.”
You see, as we dwell in the Lord, we sing his praises because we delight in our King because He is the Alpha and Omega, the one who was, the one who is, and the one who is to come, seated on his throne above. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!
In dwelling in our king and singing his praises for who he is and what he does, there is no fear we should have of this world, or the enemy, or ourselves.
So if you would turn your bibles to Matthew 6:25-33 and see the amazing connection here with Psalm 84:3-4.
In Psalm 84, the sons of Korah look at something as small and seemingly insignificant as a sparrow and notice that even it has found a place near the altar of God. The bird does not have wealth, status, power, or control over tomorrow, yet God has still given it a place to dwell.
And Jesus uses almost the exact same kind of picture in Matthew 6 for us. He points His disciples toward the birds and reminds them that they do not store up everything they need for the future, yet the Father still feeds them.
Read Mathew 6:25-33 with me.
Matthew 6:25-33
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[g] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
So the point is not that we should never work, plan, or prepare. The point is that our peace cannot come from believing that we are the ones holding everything together.
That is where this connects directly to contentment. Discontentment tells us, “I need more before I can be at peace.” Anxiety tells us, “If I do not control this, everything may fall apart.” But Jesus points to the birds and says, look at how your Father cares for them—and then remember how much more valuable you are to Him.
Psalm 84 shows a bird finding a home near God’s presence. Matthew 6 shows birds being provided for by the Father. Both are pointing us toward the same truth: we can be content because our lives are not ultimately held together by what we can provide for ourselves; they are held by a Father who knows what we need.
And that is why Jesus ends this section by telling us to seek first the kingdom of God. Biblical contentment does not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It means that instead of spending our lives anxiously chasing after everything we think will make us secure, we can focus ourselves on what God has actually called us to do and trust Him with what we cannot control.
Rest for a second here
I’m a member of Gen Z and one of the nicknames for those of us between the ages of 14 to 29 is “The Anxious Generation.” Training and teaching in worldly contentment is what has led millions of teens and young adults into the trap of anxiety and fear.
Psalm 84 in action is where fear begins to lose its grip on us. That does not mean we will never feel afraid, or that difficult circumstances suddenly stop being real. It means fear no longer gets to control our decisions, because our confidence is no longer in our ability to provide, protect, or plan perfectly. If the same Father who feeds the birds knows what we need, and if He is the One who gives us a place to dwell, then we do not have to live as though everything depends on us. We can be content because our security is in Him. The fear may still come, but it does not have to rule us; it doesn’t have to be a namesake. We can bring it back under the trust of the Father and keep seeking His kingdom first.
5. Psalmist Processing Contentment During the Journey
Psalm 84: 5-9 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah. Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed!
Now I want to address something that is super important as it pertains to biblical contentment: it is, in fact, impossible to achieve true contentment without Christ.
If our strength is in ourselves, to try and achieve being content, then we have missed the entire point.
You see, true contentment is actually the feeling of being completely satisfied and rejoicing in the fact that you need nothing other than Christ.
Because whatever we achieve or get to make ourselves feel happy in a moment in our own strength will ultimately fail.
What happens when that feeling goes away after we just worked so hard to achieve? To reach a goal? To purchase that object?
We then look for the next achievement. Set a next level goal. Find an accessory for the object we just purchased. It’s something else always. We realize that the externals don’t solve the discontentment and the dissatisfaction.
The whole world, and your flesh, and the enemy have made it so that we are always trying to find contentment in anything that is not Christ. The enemy knows if he can keep you happy without Christ, then he has won the battle for who you truly serve.
Here is the amazing truth—with Christ we don’t need to look or pursue after anything else this world has to offer.
If you have put your trust in Christ, you have received the greatest gift and have been given the greatest purpose that will never leave you wanting. We are truly content because we know we actually don’t need anything this world has to offer we only need christ.
We know that if we were to die, we are saved. Being truly content isn’t happiness in a moment like the world says it is.
It is the feeling of being completely at peace, with no fear, knowing you have everything. And You have everything to offer because the one who is in you will provide anything for his purpose. It is a continuous feeling that lasts until the day he calls us home. It is the perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed.
Now, here is where the Lord has convicted me.
Well, Lord, I know these things. I know I am a child of the king. I am content and I am good with you.
You see, this knowledge is just knowledge and I can know all of these things we just talked about. Sometimes what we call contentment, over time becomes a passive and stagnant complacency. Is my contentment an excuse to not pursue sanctification or growth or the difficult things God may be calling us to do? We cannot use contentment as an excuse. We may feel good where we are with the Lord and we may say I know him and think—it’s all good, we’re good.
Here is the kicker, your salvation and contentment is not just about you. Let me say that again: it’s not just about you. It’s actually more so about others so that we can have many more brothers and sisters in Christ.
You see the devil loves when we are complacent. He loves the Christian who just knows the truth in their head and does not act with their hands and feet.
He knows that even though we are submitted to the king, he can at least keep us from doing the work of Christ and that is the whole point.
If we are truly biblically content we actually are always pursuing, not happiness, but the Lord and growing in his ways—going therefore and baptizing in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit. It is an active emotion, not just moments of happiness for the lord but an active look at your life, always being Satisfied in what you have to give to him at any moment.
We may say, “Well, I don’t really have anything to give.” I would respectfully say, that is a lie you may be telling yourself or believing from the enemy.
The Lord gives us the words to say and I can promise that he will use you in whatever sphere of influence you may have. He even uses us in the Valley of Baca Psalm 84:6
I want to explain what that means because it is a really important picture in this Psalm.
We do not know exactly where the Valley of Baca was, but it seems to have been a dry and difficult valley that pilgrims would pass through as they traveled toward Jerusalem to worship God. Even the name Baca has connections with weeping, and it may also refer to a type of tree that grew in dry places and appeared to “weep” drops of resin.
So picture these worshipers traveling toward Zion. They know where they are going. They are going to the presence of God, but the road to get there still takes them through a dry valley.
And notice what the Psalm says: they pass through the Valley of Baca. They do not make their home there. The difficult season is part of the journey, but it is not the destination.
And while they are there, they make the Valley a place of springs. God is able to bring pools of refreshment and blessing even in the place that feels dry.
That connects directly to contentment because biblical contentment does not mean God will always place us somewhere comfortable. Sometimes we are going to find ourselves in a Valley of Baca, a season where we do not have what we wish we had, where life is difficult, or where we feel like we have very little to give.
But the question is not simply, “How quickly can I get out of this Valley?” The question is, “Lord, how can you use me while I am passing through it?”
God can use us in the valley just as much as He can use us on the mountaintop. He can use us in our jobs, in our homes, with our families, in difficult seasons, and even in moments where we feel like we have very little to offer.
And that is part of contentment: trusting that wherever God has placed me in this moment, I can still faithfully give Him what I have while continuing to walk forward with Him.
We must go strength to strength psalm 84:7
And I want to stop on that phrase for a second: “They go from strength to strength.”
Think again about the picture the psalmist is giving us. These people are on a pilgrimage. They have just passed through the Valley of Baca. Normally, the farther someone travels through a difficult journey, the weaker and more exhausted you would expect them to become. But the psalmist says the opposite happens to these people: they go from strength to strength.
Why? Because verse 5 already told us where their strength comes from: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you.”
Their strength is not coming from themselves. God is giving them what they need for each part of the journey.
And I think this is incredibly important when we talk about contentment. Contentment does not mean that I look at where I am spiritually today and say, “Well, this is good enough. I guess I’ll stay here.”
No. If our strength is coming from the Lord, then the strength He gives us today should help us take the next step tomorrow.
Going from strength to strength does not necessarily mean that every season becomes easier or that we suddenly become stronger in ourselves. It means that as we continue walking with God, depending on Him, going through valleys, and seeing His faithfulness, He continues supplying the strength we need to keep moving toward Him.
So biblical contentment should actually produce growth.
I can be content with what God has equipped me to give Him today while still asking Him, “Lord, how can You strengthen me so that I can give You more tomorrow?”
I don’t have to hate where I am today in order to grow tomorrow. I don’t have to look at someone further down the road and become discontent because I am not where they are. My responsibility is to keep walking with the strength God has given me.
And notice where all of this strength is taking them: “each one appears before God in Zion.”
They aren’t becoming stronger just for the sake of becoming stronger. They have a destination. They are moving toward God.
And that needs to be the purpose of our growth too. We don’t pursue becoming better Christians so that we can feel better about ourselves, look more spiritual, or compare ourselves to somebody else. We go from strength to strength because we want to know God more, serve Him more faithfully, and become more useful for His kingdom.
And as we ask for more opportunities, we know we are already blessed—he is our shield Verse 9 we are anointed and in his Spirit. I can’t stress this enough. You should have no fear of anything—not of man, not from yourself, or anything the enemy may throw at you. We fear nothing except the Lord, which is part of delighting in him.
He who is within you, where your strength comes from, has overcome the world. We will overcome the devil with the testimony we have by working with Christ each and everyday.
An ongoing feeling of contentment in what we have to offer is crucial. If you don’t feel like you are offering enough, ask to offer more.
Here is the opposite side of the coin, so we must not fall into this.
If you are shaming yourself for not offering more and, check your life again in this lens with the question: In humility, am I being a good steward with what the Lord has equipped me with in this moment? If the answer is, “Yes!” That’s great! Don’t let the devil or anyone else tell you you’re not giving enough. All the Lord calls us to is for you to bring whatever you can, the best you can, and he will work miracles. All he needed from a little boy was 5 loaves and 2 fish and he fed 5000 people with it.
Trust in the Lord and be content with what he has given you and what you have to give.
6. Psalmist Processing Choosing What Is Better
Psalm 84:10-12 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!
So it all comes down to an ongoing choice everyday: do I choose to be content with the Lord, submitting to him what I have and what I have to give, knowing true peace in him alone, or do I keep looking and going after the next best thing the world has to offer.
7. Closing Illustration Brother Lawrence
So this brings us back to The testimony and story of the young man who was injured in the Thirty Years War is very relatable. He was looking for what it meant to find his place and purpose in the Lord, not just being content knowing who God was, but wanting to understand how to live that out.
He says, “I sought a place where I could suffer for my failures [his sins of war].” He thus entered the monastery in Paris and changed his name from Nicolas to Brother Lawrence.
He was assigned to the monastery kitchen where, amidst the tedious chores of cooking and cleaning at the constant bidding of his superiors, he developed his rule of spirituality and work. In his Spiritual Maxims, Lawrence says, “Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?”
For Brother Lawrence, “common business,” no matter how mundane or routine, was the medium of God’s love. The issue was not the sacredness or worldly status of the task but the motivation behind it.
Brother Lawrence continues, “Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I put myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.”
Brother Lawrence retreated to a place in his heart where the love of God made every detail of his life of surpassing value. He says “I began to live as if there were no one, save God and me in the world.” Together, God and Brother Lawrence cooked meals, ran errands, scrubbed toilets, and endured the scorn of the world.
He admitted that the path to this perfect union was not easy. He spent years disciplining his heart and mind to yield to God’s presence. He says “As often as I could, I placed myself as a worshiper before him, fixing my mind upon his holy presence, recalling it when I found it wandering from me. This proved to be an exercise frequently painful, yet I persisted through all difficulties.”
Only when he reconciled himself to the thought that this struggle and longing was his destiny did he find a new peace: his soul “had come to its own home and place of rest.” There he spent the rest of his 80 years, living in relative obscurity and pain and perfect joy.
I picked Brother Lawrence because I felt that many of us can relate. Most of us are probably not going to have some huge or extraordinary calling that suddenly changes everything about our lives. Lawrence simply learned, day after day, to rejoice in God and be content with what he had and what he had to give in whatever moment he was in.
And when we look at Jesus, we see the perfect example of this kind of biblical contentment.
Jesus was completely at peace in His relationship with the Father and completely submitted to the Father’s will. In John 4:34 Jesus says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” His satisfaction was found in doing what the Father had placed before Him.
Jesus says again in John 5:30, “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me,” and in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” Jesus was not constantly looking for something else to make Him satisfied. He knew who He was, He knew who the Father was, and He faithfully gave what He had to give in every moment.
And we see this most clearly in Gethsemane. Jesus did not pretend that what He was facing was easy. He prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” That is such an important picture of contentment. Contentment does not mean that we have to enjoy every circumstance we are in. Jesus desired for the cup to pass, but He was still completely submitted to the Father within that circumstance.
Jesus also lived in perfect unity with the Father. In John 10:30 He says, “I and the Father are one.” And throughout His earthly ministry He was led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Luke 4:1 tells us that Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit” and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness (a Valley of Baca). So we see the Son doing the will of the Father while walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus’ contentment never became complacency. Philippians 2 tells us that although He was in the form of God, He humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient even to death on a cross. He was completely secure in who He was and completely satisfied in the Father, but that security drove Him into obedience, service, sacrifice, and ultimately giving His life for us.
That is the perfect picture of biblical contentment. Jesus was at peace with the Father, submitted to what the Father had given Him to do, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and faithful with everything He had to give in every moment. And because of His death, resurrection, and the gift of His Holy Spirit, He has given us everything we need to learn to live with that same kind of trust and peace in God.
So instead of praying through the psalm in spoken form as we’ve been doing, today I’m going to close by singing Psalm 84. Please pray along and lets reflect on how we can Grow in contentment.
Sing Psalm 84 Shane and Shane