contentment

Finding Contentment

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

If there’s one thing I’m learning during this enforced time of semi- isolation it is just how simple our needs really are. During these six weeks we celebrated our 47th anniversary with takeout and flowers delivered to the house. Our children and friends called to congratulate us and 50 more sent love and greetings on Facebook while they chuckled at those old wedding pictures

We have haven’t been to church but we have had church online and learned the value of listening and worshipping at home. Our small group was cancelled but people are keeping in touch with messages and phone calls. Being unable to be physically present with others we are learning how important it is to pray for one another. And through it all life has inexorably become both quieter and more content.

Maybe we are becoming content because for the first time in a long while we are seeing how helpless we are and how strong the arms of God that draw us ever closer to Him!

Getting Through the Fog

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About an hour south of us along the highway there is a stretch of road often covered by a dense fog. It could be a nice sunny morning everywhere else as you drive along then suddenly you find yourself unable to see more than a few feet in front of your car. Stopping is not an option because another car from behind could run right into your car. I have found the best option is to get behind a tractor trailer and follow it through. Powerful headlights enable the truck driver to see far better than I.

Sometimes in our spiritual lives we can also get lost in a fog. When our goal is to be known for someone we are not by taking possession of things that are not ours we are living in a spiritual fog. We lose perspective of what and who really matter in our lives. Little desires appear important and great horizons disappear. But instead of putting on the brakes in fear we need to look to the light of the Lord Jesus ahead. He sees clearly what lies in front of us. We can rest content with our position because He will bring us safely out into the sunshine. If you feel like you are passing through the deepest fog remind yourself that there is no better place to be than just behind Jesus because He is the light of life!

Contentment

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But Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 1 Timothy 6:6-7

Every commercial we see on our television screen has the goal in mind of causing us to become discontent until – we buy their product. Though we may not have worried much about, the style of our clothing, the brand of our car, or how comfortable our pillow is, marketing firms are out to change that in 30 seconds. Watching five minutes of advertisements might be enough to keep us up half the night wondering if our neighbors have noticed that the white shirts our kids wore to school yesterday were a little grey!

Madeline in Easter Dress

But having all the resources of this world at our fingertips will never make us content. No pile of money is high enough to assure a happy retirement. No detergent, toothpaste, car or dating service will ever deliver on the promise of real contentment. At the beginning when God created Adam and Eve they were content. They had neither clothing, transportation, nor possessions, and yet they walked in the cool of the day with God. Their only goals were to care for the garden and to obey God.  As we fold up the weeks and months of this past year and put them away in our memories why not end this year with contentment? Not everything has gone our way. Not every bill has been paid, every obstacle overcome. Yet Jesus offers to walk side with us from this year to next. Whatever we have, or whatever we go through He promises always to be with us. What unimaginable wealth to simply know that I am His and for all eternity He is mine!