The Grass is Always Greener: The Spiritual Danger of Discontentment

What does the perfect evening look like? I suspect it includes a cool summer air, grilling out, listening to Bon Iver, and smoking cigars with some of your dearest friends. That’s what I did the other night and it seemed like a perfect evening for me. There are moments when contentment seems not only possible but simply a natural impulse in light of the context. There are other times, however, when contentment seems like it’s inconceivable and preposterous. After all how do you find contentment when you’re diagnosed with cancer, losing your insurance coverage, struggling financially, or stranded far from home? How can you find contentment in such devastating situations? Perhaps part of the problems comes from misunderstanding what contentment is, and failing to see how dangerous discontentment can be.

Discontentment is often defined as a feeling of being unsatisfied. That makes sense and I think it’s a fair definition. We have all, I am sure, felt unsatisfied with something in our life. Unsatisfied with our weight or physical appearance. Unsatisfied with our paycheck. Unsatisfied with our child’s level of obedience. Unsatisfied with our car, cell phone, home, etc. It can actually be a very normal and understandable feeling to be less than satisfied with something, even with ourselves. But there is also a spiritual element to discontentment that can be very deadly to your soul.

Discontentment usually begins by comparing ourselves to someone else, or our situation to someone else’s situation. We see what we lack more clearly now, we see what they have and begin to complain. But all that we have, and all that we encounter is from God (1 Cor. 4:7).  When we begin to live in discontentment a spiritual danger creeps in: a spirit of thankfulness. We become ungrateful of all that God has given us. The idea that the “grass is always greener” perpetuates a thankless spirit that not only finds fault with God, but inadvertently (at least) blames him for what your dissatisfaction.

In the coming days we’ll talk about how to cultivate contentment, but the important point to make now is that discontentment is not simply an emotion. It can be a spiritual danger! For more check out this video lesson.