Daily Dose 18: Contentment

The discipline, diligence, and stewardship we demonstrate in our lives is more of a statement about our contentment with our designated priorities and our willingness to work through them than about us possessing any special talent or organizational flair.

When we find ourselves spinning our wheels in frustration with our lives, the quickest and easiest way to squirm away from that frustration, conviction, pressure, or dissatisfaction is to begin to daydream about “when” it will be gone.  Tired of tests, five hundred page reading assignments, and endless oral presentations?  Start wishing for the time when school will be done.  Ready to collapse in a tearful heap on the floor because for the twenty-seventh day in a row you’ve changed hundreds of diapers, picked up thousands of blocks, served millions of peanut butter sandwiches, and managed to get dressed at the same time you were fixing supper?  Start wishing for when the kids will be in school.  Had it with unreasonable bosses who act like they own you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week?  Wish for retirement, a new job, or the golden opportunity to be your own boss.

The Third Big Question

Such thinking may be natural, but doesn’t bring victory to our spirits, permanent improvement to our lives, or help setting goals.  Instead try this.  Ask the question, “If this were the best it would ever be, would I, should I, be content?”  If this were the best my marriage (or lack of marriage) would ever be, would I be content—should I be content?  If my job situation, the hours, the pay, the personnel were always like this for the rest of my life, would I be content—should I be content?  If I had to go to school in this very same way for the rest of my life, would I be content—should I be content?  If this were the only sofa I could ever have, would I be content—should I be content?  Do you get the idea?

Take some thinking time. How would you answer that question for the pressures and responsibilities you face? For the frustrations? What immediately came to mind as you read? Biblical contentment is neither fatalistic capitulation to what is, nor complacency about how things are. Biblical contentment, as we shall see, is a powerful tool for evaluating your life for yourself, something everyone needs in the essentially private world of the home.