Finding Contentment

"I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

Philippians 4:10‑13

In Our Daily Bread, Philip Parham tells the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat.

“Why aren't you out there fishing?” he asked.

“Because I've caught enough fish for today,” said the fisherman.

“Why don't you catch more fish than you need?” the rich man asked.

“What would I do with them?”

“You could earn more money,” came the impatient reply, “and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish. You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you'd have a fleet of boats and be rich like me.”

The fisherman asked, “Then what would I do?”

“You could sit down and enjoy life,” said the industrialist.

“What do you think I'm doing now?” the fisherman replied.

What is contentment? More importantly, how do we find it in a world that seems designed to foster discontentment in our lives? I'd like to share my thoughts from a sermon I preached some years back.

Contentment means many things to many people, but I have found that it really boils down to three main concepts:

1) Contentment means that I am satisfied with my station in life. I am not constantly struggling to become something I'm not for all the wrong reasons. This does not mean that we cannot work toward bettering ourselves by obtaining more education or seeking a more rewarding career. But it does mean that, regardless of where we are on our journey, we are okay where we are if we never go any further.

2) Contentment means that I accept God's will, whatever that may look like. So many believers claim to want God's will in their life, but then complain because His will doesn't look the way they envisioned it. Accepting God's will isn't a passive act, either. If we truly believe that our loving heavenly Father will only do what is best for us, even when we can't see the positive outcome, then we also have to believe that His will revealed in our lives is for our own good, regardless of whether it resembles what we think we want or need.

3) Contentment means that I have the peace and rest that come from not struggling and striving for something I don't have. So often we are tempted to compare our lives to others around us (or the images we are subjected to in the media and various forms of entertainment). Those comparisons tend to foster a sense of discontentment in us, and we spend too much time, money and effort obtaining things that end up only fueling that discontentment.

There are three major area of discontentment in our lives:

1) Self (body, looks, intelligence, tal­ent, career aspirations, etc.). Ask anyone what one thing they would change about themselves and they will always reply with something. I have yet to meet anyone who isn't dissatisfied with some aspect of their life. We're too short or too tall, too fat or too skinny, too young or too old, we're not smart or educated or talented enough, we're not pretty or handsome enough. The list goes on.

I grew up with a very negative self-image, largely fueled by the constant bullying of my family members. It took decades for me to finally become comfortable in my own skin. And yet, at nearly 51 years of age, I still find plenty to criticize when I look in the mirror. But I have to remind myself that this is exactly how God designed me, and that I am a unique and beautiful creation of the master designer.

2) Relationships (spouse, children, par­ents, friends, etc.). Whether you are currently in a romantic relationship or not, chances are there have been times when you found yourself wishing you were with someone else (or no one at all). Or perhaps you have found yourself competing with your friends, trying to one-up each other. If you have children, there will come a time (or perhaps it has already happened) when you are convinced that there is no way these creatures are your progeny. Some of us feel the same way about our parents - surely I am adopted and no one has the heart to tell me.

Society sets us up to be discontent with our relationships. We seem to think that our relationships should make us happy and complete, and then become disappointed when they fail to do so. News flash: life is not a sit-com. Life is messy, and relationships are messy. If you are expecting your family, spouse, or friends to make you all warm and fuzzy day in and day out, you are going to be sorely disillusioned.

3) Wealth (money, possessions, plea­sures, power, security, etc.). In our American society, money is king. If you're paying the least amount of attention to what is happening in this country today, you will know that the gap between the rich and poor is becoming wider and wider, and the middle class is quickly vanishing. The people with the money are the ones in power, and they tend to make the rules in their favor. Success in this country is largely based on how much money you have, how big your house is (and how many toys you've managed to fill it with), what kind of car you drive, where you go on vacation, which designer's name is on your clothing labels, etc.

How many times have you said to yourself, "if I only had more money, I could...."? Or how about, "if I had enough money, I would never have to...."? We tend to see money as a hedge of protection against bad things happening, or as a means to a more fulfilling life. Trust me, as one who can identify with Paul's statement "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty", I can tell you that having money doesn't make you any happier, and not having money doesn't make you any more miserable. There are plenty of poor people who are happy, and plenty of miserable people who have more money than they know what to do with. I know from numerous experiences that money can evaporate overnight, and that there are plenty of people out there more than willing to separate us from our possessions.

Of these three areas, wealth tends to be the biggest area of discontentment. We seem to think that if we have enough wealth, we can fix these other areas. Don't like your nose? Get a new one. Don't like your spouse? Get a new one. House too small? Get a bigger one. Don't like your kids? Send them to boarding school. 

The problem is, we never have "enough" money. Ask anyone you know if they have enough money, and I can guarantee you the answer will always be "no". No matter how much we have, we seem to think it is never enough. I can still remember when I took home $120 a week working at Circle K back in the mid-80s. Somehow I managed to live on that paltry sum. Years later, I was making significantly more money in my banking career, and so I bought a house. And a new car. And new furniture. And there was never enough money. My annual statement from Social Security tells me that I have earned well over $1 million dollars in my lifetime. I would love to know where all that money went, because it sure isn't in my bank accounts. I'm at the point in my life where I have everything I need, and much of what I want. And I'm no happier because of it than when I was living paycheck to paycheck as a store clerk. My happiness does not (and cannot) come from what I own or how much cash I've accumulated.

The paradox about money is this - the more you have, the more you tend to spend. We tend to want bigger and better things as soon as we can afford them (and often before we can afford them). We spend our excess money of self-indulgent pleasures that don't last, and then wonder why we never have money available for something really important.

There are three warnings in Scripture that speak to this situation:

  

Ecclesiastes 4:7‑8 

"Again I saw something meaningless under the sun: There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. 'For whom am I toiling,' he asked, 'and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?' This too is meaningless – a miserable business!"

1 Timothy 6:6‑10 

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

 

Hebrews 13:5‑6

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?' "

  

So how do we find contentment? Here are six ways that I have found useful in my own life:

1) Acknowledge that everything you have comes from God. I determined a long time ago that all I have (money, possessions, relationships) belongs to God, and He just lets me enjoy it for a season. Sometimes that season is long, and sometimes it is surprisingly short. But when I have this attitude, then I don't get too caught up in the "stuff" of life because it's not mine anyway. When we start to think that we are solely responsible for what we have, we tend to become too possessive of it, which leads to an endless striving to obtain more or better "stuff".

2) Realize that God does not delight in depriving us of anything that is good for us. Psalm 84:11 tells us:

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless."

If you feel you are being deprived of something in your life, perhaps it is not a "good" thing for you to have (at least, not at the moment). I won't go into the "blameless" thing here because we are all sinners, but we are also "blameless" in Christ Jesus. Just make sure you're living a life that is pleasing to God as best as you know how.

3) Draw your strength from Jesus – Paul's secret to finding contentment is summed up in Philippians 4:13:

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

Regardless of your current circumstances and their attendant level of discontentment, remember two things: you are not doing it alone as long as you have Jesus in your life, and everything this side of eternity is temporary. The psalmist didn't say "my shepherd helps me avoid the valley of the shadow of death"; he said "my shepherd walks with me through the valley of the shadow of death" (my paraphrase).

4) Realize that you already have every­thing you need. Refer to the Hebrews passage above. As long as we have God in our lives, we can endure anything and face any situation. What you think you lack doesn't jive with God. He knows what you really need, and has already provided it.

5) Set your priorities in order.  1 Timo­thy 6:6 tells us:

"Godliness with contentment is great gain."

When we seek to live godly lives, we will have godly priorities, and the things of this world will no longer call to us, creating unsatisfied desires. When we are dissatisfied with our lot in life, we are essentially saying to God, “You have not done an adequate job of caring for me, so I will take matters into my own hands and provide the things I lack.” This is a slap in God's face and shows us to be the spoiled, greedy, impetuous children that we are.

6) Finally, be reasonable and responsible. If God chooses to prosper you, it's not so you can place your trust in your blessings, but so that you can glorify Him with those blessings. I have often said that we are not blessed to be blessed, but we are blessed to be a blessing. As long as you are a conduit for God's blessings to flow through, He will continue to bless you. If become a cistern, the flow of blessings will stop and what you have will become stagnant and unsatisfying.

If we continually squander our material blessings, we become in­creasingly dissatisfied with our lives and want more. The more we strive for what we do not have, the emptier our lives become; we must focus on what we do have, not on what we do not have.

In my quest for contentment, I have identified three truths: 

1) God is sovereign and does whatever He pleases. The sooner we accept this fact, the sooner we will be at peace with the situations and circumstances in our lives, instead of constantly ragging on God about what we think should or should not be. 

2) It pleases God to do only those things which are in our best inter­est. Unlike the God I grew up with, our loving Father is not "out to get us". He loves us and wants to make our lives a joy and not a burden.

3) We cannot fight these truths and remain in communion with God. If we turn God into a "cosmic Santa Claus", we are missing the big picture. God created us to be in communion and fellowship with Him, not to be spoiled little brats who get anything we ask for regardless of its intrinsic value.

It is only when we accept the fact that God is in control, and that He loves us more than we will ever under­stand, can we rest from our struggles and find contentment in Him. My challenge to all of us is that we will begin to look at our pursuits in life and ask the question:

“Am I doing this, or wanting that, or unhappy with my situation because I have not found contentment with what God has chosen for me?”

If we are truly honest with ourselves, we will all find areas in our lives that are a direct result of discon­tentment with God's will. May we all one day honestly be able to say with Paul, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.... I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

Have a blessed week!

Pastor David