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Contentment

Writer's picture: Annie Warner DonnellyAnnie Warner Donnelly

Updated: Sep 30, 2022




A vital part of our ability to thrive as Christians is our willingness to be content. So often, when we talk about being content, conversation focuses on living within our means, doing more with less. When we look at some statistics, we see why conversation so easily focuses on this area.



In the March 12, 2015 issue of Time Magazine, Josh Sanburn, author of the article, “America’s Clutter Problem”, wrote about a University of California, Los Angeles, study conducted in 2001.


The Team visited a house–the first one they analyzed–with 2,260 visible possessions in just three rooms. One family’s office included 2,337 visible non-paper objects. Some families stored as many as 650 boxes, bins and other items in their garage, a space so crowded that 75% of the families couldn’t park their cars inside.


In 2018, Dianne Buckner, CBC News, wrote an article called: Storage business booming as Canadians grapple with 'too much stuff'.


Have you ever wondered how many things are visible in your home, or are invisible in your drawers and cupboards? I’ve started wondering!


But our homes through the years may have had more than things in them: they may have housed people, they may still house people. A far more important part of contentment is being content within our relationships with others.


Books and movies may portray characters who always say and do the right thing, but the imperfections of humanity result in different outcomes. If our view of relationships is based on expectations of what people should say and how people should act, we will be disappointed and discontented.


Our ability to be content is based on our relationship with our Creator. Our relationships with each other can be unsettling, unpredictable, at times unloving, but our relationship with our Creator is Rock-solid. His promises are kept. He continually looks at us with love in His eyes. If we wander away from Him, He waits and watches for our return. His heart and arms are open to us. He loves us as no human being can love us. His love can fill us as no human being’s love can fill us.


Trust our Creator to love you as you’ve never been loved before! Receive the love He offers. In His one word, “Come”, there’s everything we need. Come to Him for comfort; for wisdom; for delight in the world He created; for answers to what troubles you; to recognize the joy of His salvation; the peace of His promises - for this is what love looks like.


In this broken world, only our Creator can restore to us the joy of His salvation. He alone provides perfect peace when we keep our eyes on Him because we trust Him. His peace leads us to have patience, to wait for His guidance, His leading, His wisdom, His discernment, so that we can know what to do in each challenge we face.


His peace enable us to be kind, to look for the good in others, and to act with goodness and gentleness.


We choose to be faithful to our Creator because He’s constantly and consistently faithful to us.


And suddenly, amazingly, we recognize that we have control over our emotions. They no longer cloud our thinking. We’re mastering self-control. We’re choosing our response to situations, no longer having random responses to them. We’ve become able to stop, to pray, to apply what we learn as we study our Creator’s word, and to wait for signs of His leading when we’re unsure of how to proceed.


Because our Creator meets our need for love and acceptance, in our contentment, we're able to love others, really love and care for them.


In Philippians 4:11, the Apostle Paul wrote: “ … for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.


Can we say the same?


We don’t need more things. We need more of the One who created us. Let’s spend more time with Him.


Let’s cherish the peace and contentment that Creator’s love brings. May His words be our words. May His actions be our actions.


May we bear His image with dignity, with humility and with gratitude, because, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “godliness with contentment is great gain.” May it be so in all of our lives. Amen.

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