My mother was not one to have freshly-baked cookies ready with a glass of milk after we got home from school. She said if we were really hungry, we could eat bread and butter. (What wouldn’t I give now for some of that homemade bread and fresh-churned butter?) She had to remind me sometimes that I was being fussy, critical, and hard to please because I wanted something really good to eat! I was being persnickety.
We are not born contented. Since we are related to Adam and Eve, we have their tendency to want what isn’t readily available or even what we are not supposed to have. From earliest infancy we are able to make our wants known—loudly and often. Only when we are older, and sometimes not even then, do we learn to be grateful for what we have.
Contentment is a particularly becoming quality for Christians to develop. In a society where media-driven grasping might be considered the norm, the person who recognizes and appreciates the good gifts that God has given is a lovely contrast. The writer to the Hebrews urged them, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5) What he (or she) was saying is, “God is enough.”
A Sunday School teacher once asked her class of young children if any of them could recite the entire 23rd Psalm for the class. Several raised their hands, among them a very small girl, perhaps four-years-old. The teacher was a bit skeptical, but invited the little one to try. Standing to face the class, the little girl said, “The Lord is my shepherd, and that’s all I want.” She was finished and sat down! Like the writer of Scripture, she was saying, “God is enough.”
The Apostle Paul explained that this is something that must be learned, since it does not come naturally. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:10-13) The secret of satisfaction, Paul learned, was in Christ. He could be content in any set of circumstances because he was relying on the strength of the Lord.
We sometimes quote Paul when we are dealing with a difficult person or an unpleasant job situation or a shortage of resources in some area of life. “I can do this,” we say. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” No harm comes, I think, of using that verse to encourage ourselves. Remember, however, that the Apostle was speaking specifically about being content. Sometimes we just need a little extra help from God in order not to be persnickety!
MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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