Contentment is Bliss

As I’ve been lending my ear to the Lord lately I’ve been hearing Him say “you need to be content to walk well with Me. Contentment is key to the faithfulness of your faith.” It’s actually something He’s been telling me for quite a while, like we’re talking years on end. And it’s the one thing I am constantly needing Him to remind me of. And I think I always will.

In particular, the Lord has recently been teaching me the need to be content through the The Blessing of Ordinary devotional plan on the YouVersion Bible App (a plan put together by Matt Orth, whose website can be found at lesswithoutyou.com). And as I’ve been reading through it, it has corresponded with and deepened some revelations I’ve been having about contentment. So I’d like to share with you what I’ve been discovering.

In The Blessing of Ordinary it has been discussed that Adam and Eve had perfect harmony with God in the midst of what would seem to be entirely unspectacular. This blissful life was enjoyed primarily through the simple menial tasks of tending the garden and taking care of the animals. The everyday was EVERYTHING. And that’s how it’s got be for us too, we may not like that, but we save ourselves an awful lot of wasted time and hurt when we choose to live according to this truth.

The devotions have also discussed that David only defeated Goliath because he was consistently faithful wherever God placed him. He was able and in the right mind of faith to enter that battle because he was joyfully committed to his food delivery duties. This is actually far more impressive because on paper that job is by no means enjoyable and the earthly accolades for it are somewhere in the none range! These regular daily routines are what most of life consists of for everyone, including those the likes of David. In the middle of each one we have the opportunity to decide whether we face them in either a Christ-like or despairing manner. These are the places and times where we receive more of God’s precious grace than anywhere else because this is where we need it most! It is here where Jesus reminds us that He is all we need and we have all we need in all things since, after all, we have Him!

We must learn to accept the reality of our own life. Each one of us. Own what is real in our personal circumstances, recognize what is necessary and available, and roll with it by leaning on the Lord. This is what it means to be content. To trust God in the current context that you happen to find yourself in. There is true liberty in our lives only when we have some sort of grasp on this. It is so much easier to have a confident reliance on the Savior when we believe we are right where we need to be and have all we require in order to do what we need to do! What I think the trick is (a difficult trick at that) is to do your best to ensure that you don’t desire what is outside your current means. That is in all categories of life: financial, physical, romantic, emotional, experiential, you name it. It’s all good and fine to aspire to “something more”, the problem is when you desire to the point of obsession, scrambling frantically to get something that isn’t even in your reach.

While we’re at it, let me tell you why I think it’s most important for us to choose contentment. And I doubt it will be why you’re thinking. Obviously there are plenty of benefits to being content, like: a peace that passes understanding, an unending joy, long-suffering patience, and a desire to give of yourself. And don’t get me wrong, those things are pretty great, like pretty the best! But what I actually find even more beneficial than those things is what contentment takes away from us, or rather, keeps us from. The thing is, when we are content it prevents us from taking out our irrational frustrations on the ones we love because we realize we don’t need more than we have and therefore have no reason for the frustrations in the first place.

When we are content it prevents us from cheating in competitions and financially because it is no longer necessary to claw our way to the top in order to get what we want. When we are content we do not curse our God or our sufferings, because we can afford to trust that all things will work out for good. When we are content it prevents us from lusting after what is not rightfully ours because we believe that we’ve already received what we require.. and I could literally go on forever with more examples. But to summarize, let’s be honest, we can all point to several times in our lives where we have lashed out or acted up only because (realizing this much later of course) we were unable to obtain something that we achingly desired. This type of failed contentment only ever leaves us in a world of pain and it’s something we all want to avoid.

Believe it or not, I actually have some Biblical support for this idea, and it’s found in James chapter 4. The first two verses say this, “What leads to strife and how do conflicts originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? You are jealous and covet and your desires go unfulfilled; so you become murderers. You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain the gratification and happiness that you seek, so you fight and war.” So there’s that, basically all of the world’s struggles stem from a lack of contentment. I’d say it’s something worth chasing after!

By the way, don’t take any of this as me claiming to have some magical formula to achieve being content, because I just don’t. Like at all. Seriously. In the middle of my struggles both related and unrelated to having Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, by no means have I reached a level anywhere near to maximum contentment! It is exponentially hard to even begin to reach that destination! Jesus is the only one to ever do it and if we want to get remotely close, we are only going to be able to do so by relying on Him. And I’m still not entirely sure how that looks, but I’m certainly going to aim for it. Maybe you ought to do the same!

So, yeah, contentment is bliss. The path to contentment won’t always be though. Nonetheless, the pursuit will always be worth it! So pursue being content!