THERE WAS A TIME when we lived in our old home that we started to dislike our house. It was outdated, small, behind a noisy street, not in a safe neighborhood and was really starting to smell like our dog, even though I kept an ultra clean home. So we started looking at other houses, cause that’s what you do when you are dissatisfied with something (sarcasm).
Don’t like your house, get a new one. Don’t like your car, get a new one. Tired of your spouse, get a new one. Don’t like your church, or your friends get new ones. Don’t work on fixing it, sweep it all under the rug, walk away and start anew. Hey, it’s the American way! We came to our senses and instead of getting a new house, we painted the walls, got new flooring and a few new decorations and it looked and smelled spanking new and we didn’t get ourselves back into financial debt. Want to know the key to not falling into this pitfall? Be content and change your mindset.
“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have LEARNED in WHATEVER state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”Philippians 4:11-13
Be content and if you don’t like something, work on changing your mind. Don’t like your spouse, work on changing you and change your thoughts and actions concerning them. Don’t like your body, change your eating and exercise habits. Don’t like your job, work on being a better employee. Don’t like the way your church does something, be a better parishioner. You cannot change people or circumstances, but you can change your mind and how you respond to things.
Whatever you focus on will become magnified. Learn to be content with the things you do have, not always grasping for those you don’t; and stop comparing your life to others. Comparison breeds envy and jealousy- its end is destruction. Comparing yourself and life to others is a fool’s errand. Then, while you are busy changing your mind and finding contentment with where the Lord has you, be thankful. I’m not sure you are even in a saving relationship with the Lord if you are not a grateful person. Chew on that.
“If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.”
Luke 12:28-31
Ask the Lord to teach you to be content in Him and in His provision alone. Most do not realize this, but Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd” was written while David was exiled, not when he was king and living in abundance. The man who was like a father to him tried to kill him and he fled to the country of his enemy. He hid in caves and was pursued by those ordered to kill him. He was without a home, a land, his closest friends and family. He went without and endured affliction and trouble constantly. This is the context for psalm 23, when David says, “I shall not want”. Sounds like contentment to me.
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