The Rare Jewel of Christian Contenment - Part 5 - The Evils of a Murmuring Spirit

In The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs takes part 4 to explain the evils of a murmuring spirit. His eighth point in this persuasive argument about the evil of a murmuring spirit is as follows: THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF FOLLY, EXTREME FOLLY, IN A DISCONTENTED HEART; IT IS A FOOLISH SIN.

Burroughs enlightens the reader on the folly of murmuring with 5 sub-points, one of which I'd like to consider; Discontent and murmuring eats out the good and sweetness of a mercy before it comes. Here is the opening paragraph of his thoughts on murmuring removing the sweetness of mercy:

Discontent and murmuring eats out the good and sweetness of a mercy before it comes. It God should give a mercy for the want of which we are discontented, yet the blessing of the mercy is, as it were, eaten out before we come to have it. Discontent is like a worm that eats the meat out of the nut, and then when the meat is eaten out of it, you have the shell. If a child were to cry for a nut of which the meat has been eaten out, and is all worm-eaten, what good would the nut be to the child? So you would fain have a certain outward comfort and you are troubled for the want of it, but the very trouble of your spirits is the worm that eats the blessing out of the mercy.

I would like to twist the analogy of the worm and the nut just a bit in order to see the same point Burroughs makes using a true story my sister told me.


My sister and her family recently visited my father in northern Idaho. My father lives on a nice lakeside property which happens to contain a mini-orchard of different kinds of fruit trees. It so happened at the time of their visit that my dad's cherry trees were loaded with ripe, delicious cherries. Throughout the week my sister, her husband, and their 3 children enjoyed eating the sweet fruit.

Nearing the end of their visit, while enjoying some time on my dad's boat, they once again started in on a mound of cherries they had picked and brought for the trip. It so happened that my sister's husband broke open a cherry with his fingers instead of just popping it in his mouth. To his dismay, he could clearly see two small, white worms. After halting any further eating of cherries, he proceeded to examine 16 more cherries in similar fashion; he found 14 of them had worms. Needless to say, the cherries were no longer consumed and the thought of all the previous eating of the fruit brought an understandable amount of revulsion.

It is funny that when my sister's family where unaware of the worms they were more than happy and content with the delicious fruit. Nobody got sick from eating the worms and though I am no expert I'm guessing there would not be any serious consequences in eating them. They were 'CONTENT' with the provision when they were unaware of the worms. However, when they became aware of the worms 'DISCONTENT' entered the equation and the once enjoyable bounty was now understandably unworthy and unwanted.

That is what discontentment does. It ruins and undermines the mercy of God in our life. It takes something that was delicious and nutritious and morphs it into something that disgusts us. And though nobody could fault my sister and her family for rejecting the fruit after their discovery, I still think the story is a good example of why DISCONTENTMENT in general, and murmuring in particular, is a foolish endeavour.