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Contentment

Are we ever satisfied with what we have? How crazy is it that our hearts always desire more? 

We do believe that it is a Godly gift to have the ambition to achieve great things and to have the best in life. To honor God is always to reach the heights of our potential and to flourish as human beings.

However, we have also seen how ambition and the desire for the best can become a slave master that causes discontent to the extent that we are never happy.

Mark 8:36 What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself?

Many of us live our lives constantly comparing what we have with what others have. We must remember that there will always be someone who has more than us, and there will also always be someone who has less than us! Comparison will not serve you well, the better question is whether I am making the most with what I have!

We learn a valuable lesson from Paul as he writes to the church in Philippi, even though he finds himself in prison while he is writing this letter.

Philippians 4:11-13 I am not complaining about having too little. I have learned to be satisfied with whatever I have. I know what it is to be poor or to have plenty, and I have lived under all kinds of conditions. I know what it means to be full or to be hungry, to have too much or too little. Christ gives me the strength to face anything.

Contentment is a state of peace in your soul. 

Many people feel that success and riches are the highest purposes in life. The Bible teaches us that peace is a much greater commodity. More and more riches could become a cause of constant stress and trouble.

Contentment is a wonderful gift. 

It is peace at heart with what we have now. It is learning to be satisfied with what we have.

Contentment does not mean that we stop dreaming about achieving more, but it means that we are at peace as we trust God for the next level that He wants to entrust to us!

Contentment is a deep knowledge that we go through different seasons. 

Paul states that he knows what it means to have plenty and what it means to have a lot. A person with a long-term view of life will know that there will be seasons of plenty and seasons of challenge. Contentment celebrates variety and knows that things will not last forever.

Contentment is trusting in God’s wisdom and providence.

Paul brilliantly ends this passage with one of the most famous statements of his writings: 

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. His peace is in the wisdom and provision of His Father in heaven.

Contentment is a trust in the gracious love of our God that He will take us through everything and that He will give us the wisdom to achieve what we need to, in everything that we may encounter.