Contentment: trusting God with our desires
On 'being yourself', knowing God's love, and the economy
What would it take for you to be content? What do you need to be satisfied? Does your happiness last beyond the initial dopamine kick?
Our culture is increasingly ‘moving from being a guilt-innocence culture to becoming a pain-pleasure culture. Western societies increasingly are making their most fundamental decisions based on what brings us pleasure and avoids pain.’1
We are taught to ‘be yourself’—you should follow every desire that you recognise within yourself. More than that, it is your right as a human being to have your desires fulfilled.
Although the instant gratification of doing whatever ‘the hell’2 you like may feel good, it never lasts. You have to keep going; find the next Thing to give you a fleeting moment of happiness before you’re knocked back into reality.
And once that game gets old, you can distract yourself into oblivion with the shiny metal light box you keep in your pocket, close to your skin, so that you always know exactly where it is.
Is this all there is? Is this world just a simulation, or an unending maze to wander aimlessly through?
Is there an alternative?
The way of Jesus offers us a compellingly different way of life. Our loudest desires are not our deepest desires. The deepest, truest desire within each of us is to know and be known by God; to hear and trust that ‘I am my Beloved’s, and He is mine.’3
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.
—Jeremiah Burroughs4
The only hope we have of ever reaching contentment is through trust in God’s character. It is only when we are secure in His love for us and confident in His provision that we can say, like Paul,
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 all this through Him who gives me strength. —Philippians 4:13 (NIV)
Easier said than done, I know. But the Kingdom of God isn’t a distant cloudy theory, it’s something we are to usher into further reality by our actions in our everyday life. When God speaks to us, we have to respond.
Imagine for a moment the economic repercussions of widespread contentment would be. I’m not a financial expert by any means, but I have to wonder—would contentment kill our economy?
The ‘Morris Theorem’ contends that, ‘to explain the entire course of history—that change is caused by lazy, greedy, frightened people (who rarely know what they’re doing) looking for easier, more profitable ways of doing things.’5 If this is true, then would human development collapse if everyone genuinely began practising the way of Jesus?
Consumerism is the idea that increasing the consumption of goods and services purchased in the market is always a desirable goal and that a person's wellbeing and happiness depend fundamentally on obtaining consumer goods and material possessions.6
If contentment means acknowledging the satisfaction of reaching capacity, consumerism is the opposite, demanding increased capacity to reach satisfaction.
I don’t know what the economic consequences of this would actually be7, but it’s worth pointing out that a Biblical view of contentment doesn’t mean we ignore injustice, or don’t try to improve ourselves and the world around us. On the contrary, it’s just one of the many ways that the Kingdom of God is manifested in and through us.
In Hebrews, faithful followers of Jesus are called to ‘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.”’8
There’s a parallel to the Philippians passage here: we can only find contentment and satisfaction through the strength of Jesus, through a steadfast trust in His closeness and provision.
It takes time, perhaps an entire lifetime, for this to become our natural way of doing things. God does move in sudden and spectacular ways; that is well within His power. But more often, He forms us slowly and surely, one step at a time.
Today, may you walk another step towards contentment, remembering God’s promise that ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’9
Almighty God, who knows our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: set free your servants from all anxious thoughts for the morrow. Give us contentment with Your good gifts. Confirm our faith that, according as we seek Your kingdom, You will not suffer us to lack any good thing. Provide, therefore, whatever You see to be necessary for our health or salvation. Of Your fatherly love and compassion, give us whatever else would truly bless us. All our desire is known, O Lord, to You. Therefore perfect us in what Your Spirit has awakened us to ask in prayer. —Augustine10
Thanks for reading!
Don’t forget to vote, if you haven’t already.
May you learn to rest in the love of Jesus, trusting that He is your faithful and good Provider.
Grace and peace,
—Bethany
Williams, David. Pain-Pleasure and the Seduction of the Church.
I don’t say this flippantly.
Song of Solomon 6v3; 2v16.
I found this quote off the internet, so one can never be sure if the attributed person actually penned these words, but it’s nice nonetheless.
Morris, Ian. Why the West Rules—For Now, pg 559. I read this book, and (overall) found it very enjoyable, just not the ending.
If you’re some kind of economic philosopher and can answer this question, please let me know!
Hebrews 13v5.
Isaiah 55v9.
Ancient Christian Devotional. Oden, Thomas C. & Crosby, Cindy. Pg 119.