Contentment.

I’ve been wanting to write on this idea for some time now. It’s been slowly simmering in my mind, but it’s taken some time to put language to it.

25 is on the horizon for me and I’m taking time to observe the lives, dreams and ambitions around me. I analyse conversations with friends and acquaintances to determine what I want and what I should want. I’m taking time to weed out the sense of entitlement that says God owes me a certain kind of life, the skewed sense of “blessing” that assumes a blessed life is a materialistically comfortable one.

What do I want? What do I believe I need? How much do I understand God’s provision as better and enough? How often do I ask God to provide grace, mercy, strength and patience enough to do His will, instead of asking Him to give me a nice house and a comfy life?

We’re told to want MORE, told we’re entitled to it and should give our lives to attaining it. But I can’t find that anywhere in the Spirit-breathed words that travel from the pages of my Bible into my mind and heart. I can’t see vain ambition, competition and harmful-hurry towards my ideals.

I see a lot of slow, long journeys throughout the pages of my Bible, filled with many moments of relying on God. I see hope deferred. I see a lot of questioning and waiting. I see dreams outworked over lifetimes. I see emotional highs and bed-in-Sheol lows. But one thing that ties these stories of old together is this: God is intrinsically and faithfully concerned with, and involved in, who we are becoming and is sufficient enough to bring us Home more beautiful than when we started out (although I think He sees the full beauty right from the start.)

Contentment, for me, has started from the realisation that all the things I think will put my restless heart at ease (security, money, love, recognition, affirmation, pleasure, intellect) will make me their slave if I make them my goal. I would look to them for rest, but I would find only an endless chase for MORE. More love, more money, more affirmation, more knowledge.

And that’s the thing: We will always want more because we refuse to accept that we are created by and for God. We can’t fight our inherent design — we are made to be wholly satisfied by, and find rest in, Him.

Contentment in God isn’t always an easy choice; I don’t want to oversimplify it. I find myself constantly moving between the hamster-wheel life our culture tells us to live and the soul-saturating rest of God. But I am determined to let God teach me the lesson because it’s the only peace I know to be true — and I don’t want to overcomplicate that.

I want to stop wanting more. I want to stop the restlessness that fatigues me. I want to accept the slow, hidden life that leads to peace, joy and freedom. I want to feel that what the Lord has given me now is more than enough for me and trust that as He is today, so He shall be tomorrow and forevermore. I don’t have to do violence to my mind, my body and my relationships to ‘take care’ of myself. I have a Father in heaven who knows what I need, He said so. He is watching over and caring for me.

I’m not saying it will always look like I expect it to (or even want it to) but that’s just what trust requires of me: to take Him at His word in the uncertain and unknown. I know Him so I don’t need to know every step before I choose to move forward.

So yes, contentment. Believing I don’t need more, believing that accumulating ‘things’ isn’t going to change my heart — or at least not for the good, believing that I don’t need to be more loved or affirmed, and trusting that God is sufficient for this day and the next and the next…

Can I just ask you to stop for a few minutes and ask yourself what you think will make you happy? Be honest with yourself. How much of your time, health, thoughts and resources are you giving toward those things? And lastly, do you find this pursuit is making you more free or is it creating an insatiable appetite for more that you don’t know how to satisfy?

Can I offer a different way? Or rather can I point you to the only One who offers a better way: Jesus. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness. He promises to supply all your need according to His riches in glory. Jesus knew how to be content in the love and provision of the Father. And so, He lived intentionally and unhurried. So many people wanted Him to do more, be more, do things their way, bow to the idols of power and status. But He didn’t, I just love that.

The temptation to prove ourselves, give in to our desires and ‘listen to our hearts’ is huge. But we are restless and fickle people and we will not be satisfied until we rest in the Lord. The heart is a harsh and foolish master to let rule our lives — it is never pleased enough and will condemn us again and again.

There is peace and joy available to us, but I really do believe that it’s on the other side of contentment. We will not know deep rest until we believe we don’t need anything more than the Lord has promised to give us today.

He is enough. He is enough. He is enough.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world.” 1 Timothy 6 vs 6–7