Contentment

          You know the part of the movie where the lead character has been through major relationship issues, and she (or he) searches for something to take her mind off of it?  She channel surfs for several minutes but can only find sappy romances.  After giving up on the TV, she tries to listen to the radio.  When she figures out that all of the stations are currently playing love songs, she decides to get some air.  On her walk, she sees about ten different couples.  No matter what she does, she can’t escape it. 

            The past few days have been a little like that for me, except it has been another lesson that just keeps popping up everywhere.  If God hasn’t done this with you yet, trust me, He will.  He knows that we can be thick-headed and good at ignoring or explaining away the messages He is trying to get through to us.  That, or He knows we aren’t wanting to face those areas of our life that need to be addressed.  So, He repeats Himself – using anyone and anything in our lives to get our attention.      

            On Thursday, I went to the evening chapel at Maranatha Bible Camp (my husband was at camp all week leading worship for around four hundred middle schoolers).  The subject of Pastor John Stone’s message was contentment.  One particular quote that grabbed my attention went something like this: “The secret to contentment is trusting that God is good enough and powerful enough to have already given us everything we need to live an abundant life.”  I don’t need more than what I already have to enjoy and to fulfill God’s purpose for my life today.    

I am in a ladies’ small group that is going through a study on Philippians in the First 5 app, and Friday’s study was about contentment.  The picture quote by Karen Ehman that accompanied the verses and the teaching said: “Lord, teach me to embrace my circumstances, knowing it is You alone who gives me the strength to accept where You have me right now.” Paul wrote about contentment from prison while facing all sorts of accusations.  He also wrote about how his imprisonment was advancing the gospel.  He is an amazing example of embracing unwelcome circumstances by seeing them from God’s perspective.

On Saturday morning, God brought to mind some notes that I took while reading Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes during my first year at Frontier School of the Bible.  I dug those notes out and found a quote that she used from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs: “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”  I pulled out the book and re-read the chapter.  Later, Hughes writes “The rare jewel of Christian contentment will be yours when all that God is and all that He has done in Christ Jesus fills your heart.”             

            Lately, I have been anything but content.  I thought about what the opposite of Burroughs’s definition would be and came up with this: discontentment is that harried, disturbed, divided, insatiable frame of spirit, which frantically pushes against and distrusts God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.  This is where we naturally go when we want more than what God has chosen to give us.  At least, it’s where I go.  Discontentment is fueled every day by advertisements, social media, movies, TV shows, music, and more.  Of course we are inclined to be discontent!

            Contentment must be learned, and it must be intentionally chosen.  I have to choose to dwell on who God is and what He has done.  I know from experience that I end up in a far better state of mind by letting those truths fill me up than by following after Eve and suspiciously accusing Him of withholding good from me.  I have to believe that I can live abundantly now.  He has already given me every spiritual blessing and everything I need to be completely satisfied and content in Him.  This doesn’t mean that I won’t ever have desires or that I shouldn’t ever pursue my desires.  It does mean that my heart needs to be kept in check.  I need to be okay with the idea that my desires won’t be fulfilled if they do not line up with God’s will, and I need to trust that His will is good and perfect.  He should be my first pursuit.  As my heart aligns with His, I will find contentment that is independent of my circumstances and a rest that allows me to thrive and bloom exactly where I am at right now.