Journey into Lightl

I think we all long to be happy. We want things to turn out so that we feel good. We want to enjoy life, and anything that blocks getting what we want is bad.

This week I was reading a book about people who have major flaws in their character and, as a result, hurt people around them. It wasn’t hard to see three people from my past that did this to me.

My first response was anger at God for putting these people in my life. “What were you thinking God? Aren’t you supposed to love me? What good thing could you possibly bring from the wounds they did to me?”

These people robbed me of a lot of happiness. How much happier I could have been if they had been different! But they weren’t.

And so goes life. “For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). God warns us that life is often not happy. Our days are full of trouble.

Happiness depends on good happenings. So, how can we be happy when so many of our happenings aren’t happy?

God says a better goal for us is contentment. Contentment is wanting what we get (Hebrews 13:5). In contrast, happiness is getting what we want.

When we accept that God is the one who watches out for us, we trust that whatever bad things happened to us really had good purposes buried in them – although we may never understand what they were (Proverbs 3:5-6).

What Contentment is

The dictionary defines contentment as “the state of being mentally and emotionally satisfied with things as they are.” “As they are? How can we be satisfied with physical pain we experience everyday!” we may say to God.

It’s rare to find anyone who is deeply content with his or her life. We are a frustrated people. We worry, desire, fret, and act impatiently. How do we calm and quiet our self, like a weaned child with its mother – and be content (Psalm 131:2, paraphrased)?

How We Can Become More Content

The only way we can become more content is to grow spiritually. Otherwise, we stay the same and are frustrated by life and all the bad things that happen to us. “Human desire is never satisfied” (Proverbs 27:20, NLT).

But how do we grow spiritually?

One thing Paul did was to consider that the hurts of life would be used by God to make him godlier than he would have been without them happening. Listen to him – “I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

These bad things drove him to God in desperation. He allowed God to help him in ways he never would have if he were complacent with the circumstances of life.

Paul further explains his secret to contentment. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation… I can do it by depending on God’s strength” (Philippians 4:12-13, paraphrased).

So, what are we going to do – seek happiness in our human strength and fail? Or, seek contentment through depending on God’s help and growing spiritually? I choose seeking contentment.