CULTIVATING CONTENTMENT

The superscription describes today’s psalm as ‘A song of ascents’. As Jewish pilgrims ascended the hilly path to Jerusalem for the annual feasts, they prepared their hearts for worship by singing these ‘songs of ascents’.2 As the pilgrims climbed higher, this psalm of David would have reminded them that without humility they dare not approach a holy God. The closer we are to the Lord, the more keenly aware we become of our own flaws and failures. This is the poverty of spirit that Jesus declares ‘blessed’ in His Sermon on the Mount.3

As king, David was doubtless concerned with many weighty matters of state but, as a child of the King of Kings, he declares  himself untroubled by the scope and magnitude of matters that lie beyond his understanding or control (v 1b). He employs the  metaphor of a little child – not a baby but a weaned child. The baby at the breast is preoccupied with its own needs, easily  frustrated and fretful when these are not instantly satisfied. The weaned child, however, having discovered that mother can  generally be relied on to provide meals on time, is more likely to be ‘content’ (v 2c). While still ‘with its mother’ (v 2b), clinging  trustingly to her hand, he is less likely to be unreasonably clingy.

David’s ‘I have calmed and quietened myself’ (v 2a) is echoed by Paul’s ‘I have learned to be content whatever the  circumstances’.4 This is not an instinctive reaction but a learned response. It is an attitude we cultivate by deliberately and  repeatedly choosing to focus on our heavenly Father rather than merely on our earthly circumstances.

David encourages Israel to have the same trusting hope and confidence in God (v 3). What testimony will you share (and with whom) about lessons in trust and contentment?