The Remedy for Discontentment with Jill Atogwe
In this week’s episode with Jill Atogwe, Hunter and Jill talk about our natural tendency toward discontent, and how even our areas of deficiency and lack can press us more into Jesus. We pray this episode reminds you that even in—perhaps especially in—those places where you feel most weak and humbled, there is space for growth and intimacy with God.
“Is God really good?” Have you ever found yourself asking this question? When the diagnosis comes back, when everything crashes down, when the other shoe drops… In the midst of suffering, if you listen to your feelings and to the world, the answer to that question is “No.” But, as Jill reminded us in this week’s episode, “if you open the Word, you will see the One that God loved most—himself—he allowed to live a life of suffering and to die a death of the ultimate untouchable suffering for us to live with him in eternity forever.”
Sister, in your difficulty remember what is true: God is good and he can only do good (Psalm 119:68). You can trust him.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Tell us a bit more about who you are, what you enjoy, and what fills your days.
Share about your book, Left Out, and how that has played out in your own life.
What are some things that you felt like God “left out” of your story? How did you begin to see that those things were actually for his glory?
How has the Lord used these deficiencies, the things that you felt like were left out, to help you to see and treasure the greater thing—Christ? How have your deficiencies pressed you into more of Him?
What does it look like for you to deal with discontentment in real time, when you’re experiencing a sense of lack in your life? How do you walk yourself through those moments and preach the truth to your own heart?
Are there passages or people in Scripture that encourage you to look to Christ in your time of need?
Why was it so important that you take these lessons that you're actively learning in real time and turn around and be able to disseminate those to your own children?
What does it look like for you to cultivate contentment? How have you cultivated true contentment in Christ?
For the listeners who are struggling with contentment in what the Lord has given them, what would you encourage them toward?
NOTES & QUOTES
“In all of my striving, I cannot do it alone. I was not equipped to do it alone. And the more that I try to work this out on my own, the more the Lord will humble me because this is what is good for me. This is what is right for me.”
“This is good for me. It is good for me that I get humbled and am flat on my face because I am striving to do things on my own and striving to be something that I think in my own foolishness, I should be like.”
“The stakes become higher and the enemy gets louder, to the point where you lose a baby or you are sick again or you are back on a medication you didn't want to get back on…And it's like, ‘Is this really a good God?’ And if you listen to your feelings, the answer is ‘No.’ And that's what the world will shout so loudly: ‘What kind of God ____?’ But if you open the Word, you will see the One that he loved most—himself—he allowed to live a life of suffering and to die a death of the ultimate untouchable suffering for us to live with him in eternity forever. And you can't say, ‘he wouldn't do that to me’ because he allowed it in Jesus.”
“We can get in these phases where we just are looking for a morsel, and this has forced me to go to the text, to the Word, to know the Lord for myself.”
Insight #1:
Have you ever been in a season like the one Jill just described? Where your trial or difficulty has pressed you beyond the morsels you can get from a podcast soundbite, a good sermon, or a self-help book and pushed you straight into God’s Word? Gospel-centered books, podcasts, and resources are wonderful—clearly we believe in their worth! But they can never replace the power of the Word of God in your life.
God’s Word is beautiful because it reveals God’s heart—it was written to help grow and deepen your faith (Rom. 10:17). Scripture is one of the most clear, tangible, and intimate experiences of knowing God that we can have on this side of heaven. God’s Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12), and the Holy Spirit is faithful to work and to bring life through the reading of his Word (John 6:63). As we immerse ourselves in Scripture, day by day, month by month, year by year it makes us look more like Jesus.
I think so often of Simon Peter’s words when Jesus asked if he was going to leave like so many other disciples had, “Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). As Deut 32 says, these words are not empty or idle, they are our very life (Deut. 32:47)!
Friend, is God’s Word your life? Do you say with Peter, “Lord, where else shall I go?” or do you find yourself turning elsewhere?
God wants you to know him, and he has made this possible by revealing himself in Scripture! How might you meet God in his Word today?
“I do continually pray and ask for the Lord to remove my specific thorns. But when he doesn't, as long as he doesn't, I'm like, ‘OK, I trust you. This is good for me. As painful as it is, you are using it.’”
“[Joseph] could not have known that the Lord is always intricately weaving and he couldn't see the picture over here that it was necessary. It was good for him that he suffered. It was good for him that he struggled.”
“I am not Joseph. And so that may not be my story. I may not have all the wonderful things at the end that go exactly my way where it’s tied up with a neat bow. But I do have the hope that the Lord is using my story. The Lord is using my pain, and the Lord is using this experience and this waiting and this long-suffering, and it's for his glory. His will is that he be glorified.”
“That's being worked out in this waiting. Again, even if I don't have a neat bow tied up at the end of it, I am being changed. I am growing in perseverance and endurance.”
“I can trust even when I don't feel it that in his Word, I see that this suffering is producing those things: perseverance, character, and hope—which is the thing I need because I am very prone to hopelessness when I'm facing the same trial again or suffering in the same thing again. So instead of clinging to that hopelessness and falling into that trap, I am clinging to hope.”
“I had to repent and still often have to repent for making comfort my ultimate goal, other than just more of Christ.”
“[I can] say that this is uncomfortable, but you are with me. You have promised that you will never leave me and you yourself, Lord Jesus, experienced this discomfort. You experienced being other, you experienced being on that cross for us, you experienced being mocked and ridiculed. There is no discomfort that I could experience that Christ hasn't himself experienced. And that is the most beautiful piece of that. To have a Savior who went before me.”
“I can find myself at the end of the day looking back at the start of the day saying, ‘Lord, I didn't know how I was going to get through today, and yet I'm at the end of it in my cozy bed next to my husband, who I love, and my kids are upstairs. And it's over, and you sustained me.’ And it happens over and over and over again. And that is just such a beautiful thing.”
“Give us this day our daily bread, a daily sustaining. I need his fresh mercy every single morning. And that is real.”
“For someone who is looking to grow in contentment, there are so many steps we can take, but #1: to meditate on Scripture and have Scripture tucked away in your heart so you can repeat it to yourselves.”
“Oftentimes we don't realize that we have an idol of comfort or entitlement or pride that we're chasing after. And we are struggling because we actually feel that we don't have something that we do deserve, when in actuality we have the very thing that we could never deserve by the grace and the mercy of God who sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins. Hallelujah.”
Insight #2:
RESOURCES
Left Out: Believing My Story is For God’s Glory, by Jill Atogwe
The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller
Psalm 119:67-71
2 Corinthians 12
Psalm 103:13
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What are some things you feel that God has “left out” of your story?
How have these deficiencies, or things you felt like God left out, pressed you into more of Christ?
What does it look like for you to deal with discontentment in your life? What root sins come up when you are faced with lack?
Are there any passages from Scripture that you find encouraging in your struggle with discontent? Consider memorizing one this week!
What might you do or implement based on what you learned in this week’s episode?
MORE CONVERSATIONS ON SUFFERING
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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