Being Content God's WaySample

Contentment Is a Choice Versus a Feeling

The world tempts us to interpret certain words unbiblically. For example, the world thinks being patient means being good at waiting. If people are patient, they do not mind sitting at red lights or standing in line at the store. Because they are patient, when the cashier apologizes for the long wait, they smile and say, “No problem at all. It just gave me time to recite Scripture and pray for different people.”

Biblically, patience is synonymous with endurance, perseverance, and long-suffering, which is how the Greek word for patience, hypomonē, is often translated. In the NKJV, James 1:3 reads, “The testing of your faith produces patience (hypomonē), but the NIV reads, “produces perseverance (hypomonē),” the NASB reads, “produces endurance (hypomonē),” and the ESV reads, “produces steadfastness (hypomonē).” Being patient means handling trials and mistreatment without getting upset or becoming offended. Ephesians 4:2 says, “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” Being patient means graciously tolerating people.

Similarly, the world wants us to believe that love is a feeling over which we have no control. Cupid comes to mind. He shoots people with arrows, and they fall in love, which is why they can also supposedly fall out of love. People walk along, they trip, and the next thing they know, they unexpectedly and unwillingly lose feelings for their spouse and develop feelings for someone else. A man could tell his wife he did not mean to develop feelings for his coworker: “I did not mean any of this. We kept running into each other in the hallway and the break room, and before I knew it, I fell in love with her. I no longer love you.” However, the Bible teaches that love is a choice over which we have complete control.

We choose whether to love people by our actions, which is why we can love our enemies, as Matthew 5:44 commands. The “Love Chapter” is filled not with adjectives describing feelings but with verbs (action words) listing what love does and does not do:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4−7).

Contentment is like love; we think it is a feeling that comes and goes based on our experiences. However, the Bible also presents contentment as a choice. We can choose to be content regardless of what we are experiencing.

After publishing Your Marriage God’s Way, I began receiving invitations to speak at marriage conferences. Whether from conversations at conferences, marriage counseling I perform as a pastor, or emails I receive from people, I can tell many people are discontent with their husband or wife. I know it might not be easy, but they could choose to be content, accept their spouse for who they are, view them as their best friend, and be grateful that God allows them to enjoy life together. Instead, their discontentment leads them to spend years trying to change their husband or wife (something only the Holy Spirit can do). Hypothetically, let’s say people could change their spouse. Would it be worth all the years of fighting, nagging, and complaining? Probably not. Instead, it is best to be content. Elizabeth Elliott wrote:

A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.

What is this quote really about? It's about choosing to be content with your spouse. This is made easier by remembering that our husband or wife would love to see changes in us. We are not easy to be married to, and thinking otherwise is a sign of self-deception and pride. Maybe you are saying, “How could you know this about me when you have never met me?” I know this because the Bible says that all of us, to varying degrees, are sinful and selfish.