In an increasingly materialistic culture, I am learning to be content.
Everywhere you look, someone or something is shouting that you don’t have enough. You aren’t enough. If you want to be happy, you’ll buy this, or move there, or do that.
We can easily get caught up on social media over how amazing the lives of our friends and acquaintances (or the bloggers we follow) appear to be.
We see magazine-worthy photos of homes, vacations, and #ootd’s.
We see moms who seem to have it all together and then some, friends with the newest expensive gadgets, and yes, even ministries that cause us to want a life that isn’t our own.
When it all comes down to it, what really matters the most?
Is it all the things we accumulate over the years? Is it having the biggest and best of everything? Is it the places we’ve visited or things we’ve checked off our bucket list?
When this life is over and we are standing before the King of kings, the creator of everything and Savior of our souls; will all the things we obsessed over still seem significant?
Definitely not.
What really matters is that we lived our lives completely surrendered to Jesus. What matters most is that He is more important to us than any earthly possession or accomplishment.With this in mind, I am striving to be content with what I have and who I am.
Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
{1 Timothy 6:6-8}
Contentment is not complacency. Complacency is an excuse for staying the same and doing nothing when God has more for you. That isn’t contentment. That’s laziness.
Contentment is something totally different. It is being completely satisfied with what you have been blessed with, and the life God has given you – not comparing it with others.
Contentment is great gain.
As a matter of fact, contentment is freeing!
When you make up your mind to be content with what you have, it’s amazing how it can affect your relationships with others. It relieves the stress of trying to measure up, fit in, be something you’re not, or spend money you don’t have.
All of the sudden, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. And you’re actually happy when someone else gets a blessing!
Instead of being envious or becoming dissatisfied with your life, you rejoice with others when they get a raise, buy a new home, show up in a new dress, or get the opportunity to travel to a new place.
Hebrews 13:5 reminds us that our conduct should “be without covetousness” and that we are to “be content with such things as [we] have.”
Contentment sets you free from ungodly emotions and allows you to fall in love with the life God has blessed you with. You realize that you don’t need a massive house with square footage you’ll never use. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on things that really don’t improve the quality of your life.
You’re simply happy with your home, your family, your church, and the road that God has set you on by divine design.
Then, when you do get something more, you’re more likely to bless someone else with it! Being content with what you have frees you to give what you don’t need. How awesome is it that God can trust you enough to bless you, knowing that you will in turn be a blessing to others!
Don’t get sucked into an unhappy pursuit of ‘more.’ Happiness doesn’t lie in what you possess or what this world calls ‘success.’
Be like Paul, who said in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”