Contentment

What is it?
and
Can you achieve it?

Paul talks about it in Philippians chapter 4. He talks in verse 11 about having LEARNED how to be content.  Today in Bible Study, we talked about just this. And how it's a life long lesson. And how when we think "I'd be content if only...." anything... if we're thinner, if we have more money, if we have more children, more romance, more things, a bigger house, a better job, a better car.... Yet the problem is that THINGS can't fill us with contentment. Because as soon as we achieve someTHING, we end up wanting something else.  Satan's desire is to kill, steal and destroy us and man! he does a good job at trying. It's hard to walk in life with our heads lifted high singing sweet melodies all the day because life is jolly. Because life isn't jolly all the time. There are moments of discouragement, there are moments of discontentment. And we have to choose to LEARN from those. We need to learn from all our trials and struggles and live problems and learn how to be able to be content. My Bible Study leader said this morning so many profound things. You know... Paul was beaten to nearly death, stoned, beaten with rods, ship wrecked, naked, left for dead, starved, thirsted, imprisoned, robbed, frostbitten--- she said "and that's just what happened to his physical body what about his heart?!" He was deceived, despised,  hated, mistreated, his heart concerned for those around him, the current church, those hunting and pursuing him, he had concern for his own life... and instead of writing "I'm tired of ALL YOU PEOPLE!" he wrote "In all things, I've learned to be content."  Oh wow. Oh... wow.  We don't have our priorities lined up at all, at all, at all... Oh!  I'm not saying life is roses... because we know it's not. Life is hard. There *are* trials. But God is faithful. Oh God is faithful. God promises to be and remain faithful. And if Paul, who went through the worst of all imaginable sufferings (save the shame and horror that Christ suffered in His own crucifixion) and can come out on the other side, saying "I've learned how to be content" ... then who am I to whine about my own problems?  No one.  God tells me in Jeremiah 29:11 that he has plans for me. a hope for me. a future for me.  So even if my season right now is tough, even if my life right now is hard.... or yours..... how can we not aim for contentment. THIS wont last forever. It wont. THANK YOU JESUS! Whatever your "it" is... it wont last forever. This is a season. And God is faithful. And through Christ alone, we can place our trust and do all things with His strength and His might. Our contentment isn't found in something. It's found in someone... it's found in Christ alone.

Oh Father, help me to be content. Help me to remember DAILY to place my trust in you. To ask you to go before me and beside me and behind me. Help me Lord to remember that my trials are for a season and that I can cling to you and come out on the other side. Thank you Jesus for your goodness, for your grace and mercy. Thank you Lord for sending me a Savoir... Amen.

go here to listen to a gorgeous song... it's about a promise, that God has for us. That HE promises to always be there. To be there through it all. Makes you remember that YOU *CAN* do it -- anything -- with Christ's help, with His strength, His love, His NAME!, His blood!, His word.... I hope you enjoy it. I have been feasting on it for a few days actually because we're learning it at church. It's such a beautiful song about God's promise, God's goodness... even through the worst of hardest times... God's still God. And He. Is. Good.