What are you wishing for?
If there’s an opposite to the American way of life, the concept of contentment would be a leading contender.
We’re a restless people, driven for the newest, biggest, smallest, more thinner, flashier, faster, better … whatever.
One place I see this reflected is among some of the diehard Apple fans. I’ve noticed many in this “tribe” follow what is happening at Apple in longing anticipation of the next model, newest addition, or better yet, latest and greatest new product.
We’re a people who are always wishing for something better. For something more. For something else.
Contrast that with the Apostle Paul’s words to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:6, “Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.”
A problem is our Americanized meaning of “contentment.” We take contentment to mean a place of satisfaction, or being comfortable. Yet the idea of contentment has nothing to do with either of those ideas, or the concept of “volume.”
Perhaps the best way to wrap our minds around the concept of “contentment” is in realizing that contentment is when we finally come to a place where we are happy to stop wishing. That place where we lay aside any longing for more and can honestly say, “This is enough.”
Paul discovered that place, as he describes when writing in Philippians 4:11-12, “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.”
Paul had learned how to stop wishing for more. He had discovered what it was in his life that allowed him to say, “This is enough.” He reveals the source in the next verse, Philippians 4:13, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”
When Christ is our life, we can finally find contentment. There is nothing more to wish for! We’ve discovered the place where we’re content not to wish.
Is your life full of unfulfilled wishes and longings? Or have you come to the place where you can say because of Christ, this is enough?
Scotty
Leave a Reply