Tonight, as I type this, I am sore, tired, and happy. It’s a rare combination for me. I am not one prone to enjoying manual labor and the outdoors. I’ve done my fair share of hard-working jobs. I worked in a cabinet factory stacking doors, I dug ditches and ran line for propane tanks, and I loaded aircraft containers on the graveyard shift. Currently I am helping a friend do some remodeling, and it’s surprisingly been a lot of fun. I don’t know why, all of a sudden, I like this kind of work. I don’t know why I am enjoying getting hot, sweaty, and working with hammers, but I do enjoy it. The truth is, of course, it won’t last forever. There will be days when I am tired and sore and cranky and want to go home. There will be days when I need a break. There will even be days when I long to return to the university in the fall and teach again. Circumstantial happiness waxes and wanes. True contentment must come from somewhere else. True contentment can only be found in relation to Jesus, and once I learn that I can focus on cultivating contentment in my own heart.
Hebrews 13:5 is a helpful reminder on my dissatisfied days. It reads: Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Here the author of the letter writes that we are to be content with what we have and adds the grounds for that command: God will never leave you nor forsake you. Contentment only becomes a possibility when we have faith in a God who will always take care of us. We want more and newer because we think that we need it or that we won’t be able to survive without it, but God assures us he is greater than it all and He will always be with us. This applies to the big things and the little things.
George Mueller was a Christian preacher and the founder and director of the Ashley Down Orphanage in Bristol England. In his lifetime he helped care for over 10,000 orphans. But during the process his wife died and Mueller preached her funeral. In what had to be one of the most heart-wrenching moments of his life Mueller spoke about God’s goodness. He quoted Psalm 84:11, which reads: For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Based on this passage Mueller stated in his sermon that it must have been good for him that his wife died, because God does not withhold anything from His children. In a heart-broken state Mueller was able to find comfort and contentment because God was with him.
I used this same passage at my dad’s funeral. I remember getting the news of his imminent death while in classroom in Louisville, KY. After crying my eyes out in the hallway I remember distinctly turning to this passage and reading it over and over and over again. I was desperate, crying out to God not to take my father, and pleading that he would give me comfort. I recall preaching this passage at his funeral and reminding myself that God is good and that he is near. I found peace in that moment and in many moments since then.
It’s not that I don’t still grieve, have bad days, and it’s not that it was an easy switch from anger, sorrow, and fear, to peace. But I think there’s a key difference between true contentment and circumstantial happiness. Contentment can be mine even in the midst of a great sea of trouble, when I know where my anchor is. God will never leave me.
Cultivating contentment then is not about taking stock of what I have and trying to look on the bright side, it’s about looking to Jesus again and again. It’s not about remembering the good times I had with my dad (though that is wonderful). Contentment isn’t about settling for reality, accepting that my life is what it is, etc. No, contentment comes when I turn to Jesus again and remind myself, He is with me. Where Jesus is there will I find some level of contentment.
Such contentment doesn’t make it all perfect and better. Life is still hard and I still have wants and frustrations. And in my final post for this series we will talk about that reality.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 