THE SECRET OF CONTENTMENT

Contentment is a grace that too few have. I also struggle with contentment sometimes. It is easy to be content when everything is going well but when things are not falling into place, this is were it gets tough.

From the ancient times to this present age, contentment has been hard to find. Satan and his angels had the glories of heaven and yet were not content. David had many wives but he still could not sleep contently at night without Bethsheba, a wife of another, beside him. Adam and Eve had the abundance of the garden all to themselves and yet they could not restrain their flesh for a single tree. Haman was the chief favorite of the Persian king but was not content until Mordecai hang on a seventy-five feet high gallows.

Greed, the desire to excel, surpass or possess something which we should not have, is one of the deepest forms of treason against the Holy Deity of Heaven. The urge for things beyond our measure, the desire of a mere creation to act as creator and the longing to be highly praised are the vilest elements of Adam’s blood, which courses through the veins of all his fallen children.

The more we fill ourselves with our wants, the emptier we will be. The more we fill our barns with grain or bury treasures for ourselves, the more discontent and unsatisfied we will be. The fleeting things of this world can never fill us because our hearts were designed for an eternal purpose. We were never meant to please ourselves. God, as an act of mercy, has designed our hearts to be satisfied with Him alone. If God had not done so, we would fall into greater depravity, totally given over to the pleasures of this world.

We were meant for the glory of God. Only by receiving His grace and working for His benefit can we truly be content and happy. A poor man can be happier than any rich king if he knows that God has shown mercy on him. An old widow, barren and abandoned all her life, can still leap in joy when she finds out that God never forsook her. A lone farmer will never tire working night and day if he understands that he is working for a great Savior who is infinitely worthy!

There is little contentment in this world because few know the judgment and condemnation that all men are subject to. We do not fully see the need for Christ or genuinely esteem Him because we do not know how much we have been forgiven. We find so little contentment because we don’t know how much was given to us undeservingly on the cross.

In the words of J.C. Ryle, “Few know their own sin; few feel their desert; and so few are content with such things as they have. Humility, self-knowledge, a clear sight of our own utter vileness and corruption; these are the true roots of contentment.”

How shall we be content? Know the roots of our sin. Know the judgment that we so deserve and understand the holy wrath of God that is so rarely preached in this decade. Do not think well of yourself or let yourself be deceived. Instead, recognize the depth of your depravity. If you apprehend all these, you will have little trouble with contentment. Of course, you will still struggle, but you will realize the worth and value of the Lord of lords more than anything else. Nothing else will mean to you but the glory of God and you shall find yourself running recklessly to Him with pure motives. As the prostitute knelt and wept at the foot of the Messiah, so will anyone who has understood his illness and need for a Savior. Only by such can we truly be healed from greed, dissatisfaction and spiritual apathy.