The secret of contentment

I am not saying this because I am in need, for 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. (Philippians 4:11-12)

What does it mean to be content?

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Biblical notion of contentment, is that exists independent of circumstances. Think of Paul's statement in Philippians 4. According to Paul, covetous people need a change of heart, not a change in circumstances. The reason for this, is that your deepest needs are not for better things, bigger things, more excitement. Changes in external circumstances will not bring lasting contentment, because lasting contentment only comes through satisfaction in God.

This is a very counter-cultural argument Paul is making. It’s very counter-human even, at least in our sinful state. This is one of the paradoxes of Christianity. Jesus promises us the abundant life, and yet also promises persecution and hardship, calling us to take up our crosses. The abundant life is something that exists apart from external circumstances.

I haven’t had a lot of those experiences, like Paul describes in Philippians 4 – that kind of contentment. But there is one moment in my life that really sticks out to me. I spent some time in Albania in the summer of 2000, showing the Jesus Film (evangelistic movie based on the Gospel of Luke) in remote mountain villages. In particular, I remember riding in the back seat of a Russian made automobile. It was over 100 degrees, the windows were sealed shut. I was packed in with the film equipment we needed in order to show the movie in the next village. I was a vegetarian at that time in my life, but had just eaten a plate of sheep's kidney (because it was rude to refuse what was given in an Albanian home).

At this moment, all the external circumstances were poor (to say the least). My stomach was unsettled, I was overheating. The road was unbelievably bumpy (or at lest the vehicle was not up to the task of a smooth ride). I was fearful of how we would be received in the next village.

And yet, this was one of the happiest moments of my life. I remember feeling unbelievably content, despite the circumstances. Some of this was the novelty of the situation, I'm sure. But there was also a sense that this is what I should have been doing with that summer of my life. I felt as if I was truly experiencing the abundant life (even as I was about to yack).

Coveting is desiring something so much that you lose (or are distracted from) your contentment in God. Contentment is letting God have his rightful place in your life – the ultimate source of your security, your joy, your happiness. And so we might say, that at its root, covetousness is a worship deficiency.

This is why Paul calls coveting a form of idolatry in Colossians 3:5. When we covet something, we lose ultimate trust and satisfaction in God. We make a god of something else – money, relationships, power, career, whatever. When we covet something, it becomes the controlling factor in our life.

So what’s the solution to the disease of coveting? What’s the secret to contentment? It’s loving the Lord our God with all our soul, strength, and mind. Contentment consists in recognizing that God is God, and that there is nothing else more satisfying in all the universe than a relationship with him. The secret to contentment is to want God so much that we can’t be bothered with inordinate wants for anything else.

You might say then, that we need to learn how to desire God above all other things. We need the Holy Spirit to reprogram our affections. Some have said that we need “rightly ordered desires.”

God does not call us to stop having desires. But rather we are to desire the right things. And put them in the right order.

C. S. Lewis puts it brilliantly:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Contentment doesn’t consist in trying to curb your desires. It will come in learning to desire the right things, for the right reasons. Namely, contentment comes when we desire God more than anything else in the universe. More than money, more than sex, more the perfect romance, more than power, more than a trouble-free life.

True, there are things that we need. There are even worldly things that are good. It’s not wrong to have possessions. You should love your spouse, and your kids. It’s good that you enjoy your home, and your car. But we must always have before us the command to “Seek first the kingdom of heaven.” Seeing God face to face is our goal. The pleasures in life, when we recognize that they come from him, become means to the end of desiring God. But when we make them an end in themselves, we become coveters, and we are in sin.