Collateral Bloggage

Folks, I actually got a Suggest a Topic, and I’m following through on it.  The topic is contentment, and the suggestion came from my wife’s mother’s brother’s daughter.  Otherwise known as Cousin H (not her real name, but part of it).  I’ve been sitting on this topic for a couple of weeks, because I knew there was a good verse in Hebrews, so I wouldn’t even have to divert from my Bible Read-Through schedule.  Nice.

I must really know the Bible if I knew about one little verse on contentment in Hebrews…or could it be that Ethan had that particular memory verse in Awana last year?  So really, it’s just that I have a decent memory.  My mom always told me to apply it to Scripture…

And what is the verse of which I speak?

This verse is on the topic of contentment, but only really insofar as contentment means happiness with those things we possess.  Of course, contentment is a much larger subject (and there’s no way I’m covering it all right now).

I did a quick NETBible search on content and came up mostly with verses about contention.  Interesting, given that lack of contentment can easily lead to contention.  The other verses (the ones I was actually looking for) broadened the topic somewhat.  My favorite is from Paul:

I’m not sure what Paul’s definition of abundance is, but I’m betting it’s somewhere to the south of the typical American lifestyle. And yet we’re not content with it. Why is that? Why can’t we be content (or even happy) with our circumstances?

Dennis Prager, in his fine book Happiness is a Serious Problem, points out that in searching for happiness (which is highly compatible with contentment), we battle our nature:

We are completely satisfied with nothing.

The reason is human nature.  It is insatiable-and that is why no single obstacle to happiness is greater than human nature.  Whatever our nature desires-love, sex, money, attention, pleasure, food, security-cannot be supplied in sufficient quantities to satisfy it completely.

Pay attention to the order of words first spoken by a child, and you will probably notice what I did with my youngest.  His first word was Mama.  Then came Dada.  And his third word was more.  These words of a baby accurately represent our deepest urges-first for love and security and then for more-of everything.

Solomon would seem to agree:

I actually thought that a particular Veggie Tales was very insightful, when Bob the Tomato asked Larry the Cucumber how much stuff he needed to be happy.  Larry responded, “I dunno.  How much stuff can I have?”

Larry’s answer brings up a good point Steve Gregg makes in his lecture titled “The Grace of Contentment” (available free-of-charge from digitalministries.us).  He pointed out that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had access to the entire garden and all of its trees and plants, with the exception of one tree.  When the serpent came to deceive Eve, his approach was interesting.  He didn’t say, “Did God really say you could eat fruit from any of these trees except that one?”, which focused on the generosity of God in providing so much.  Instead, he focused his attack toward pointing out the negative.  “Did God really say you couldn’t eat of any of these trees?”

The serpent knew that to get Eve to fall, he first needed to reduce her contentment.  He focused her on thinking on what God had forbidden rather than what He had provided (which is a really common mistake non-religious folks make when assessing Christian beliefs, focusing on the “don’ts”).

The story of Job has a tie-in here, too.  After Job’s great wealth was destroyed, after his possessions were obliterated and all his children killed, his wife despaired and told him to do the same.  And this even after Job’s earlier statement of faith.

Does this mean we should just throw up our hands and decide to be okay with whatever situation we’re in?  I don’t think so.  Job was content, but not complacent. He sought answers as to why he should suffer. But he recognized that ultimately, both blessing and cursing come from God, and all that matters is our response to it.

Maybe you’re content right now in your finances, your home, your relationships, even your work. But I think it’s important for all of us to examine ourselves to find out if we’re content because of our circumstances or in spite of them.  Are we prepared to be content with less? With a downturn in a relationship or the economy?

I’m a fairly naturally content person. I don’t get impatient with many things except other drivers. But it’s really easy for me to slip from contentment into complacency. There are deficiencies in my life that need work, and it’s wrong for me to, in the name of contentment, not work on them. In fact, I think many of the deficiencies arose due to complacency. I can’t say, “Well, I got myself into this situation, so I guess I’ll just have to settle in and hope it improves.” No, I need to determine if there’s something I can do to improve the situation, all the while not allowing the current state of things to rob me of joy/happiness/contentment.

Well, I’ve managed to ramble a thousand words or so about this. Any thoughts? Are you content? Complacent? Any other verses or wisdom you’d like to share? Don’t let me monopolize my own blog here…