When is Discontentment Okay?

            In all of our discussions about contentment, let us consider today the following question:  When is it okay to be discontent? 

             While it is not okay to be discontent with our physical condition, it is okay to be discontent with our spiritual condition. Though we should be content with an adequacy of food and clothing, we should not be content with an adequacy of grace.  We should covet more grace.  Never think you have enough! The Apostle Paul, though content with so little of this world, was not content with only a little grace.  He was continually striving for more, fighting for more, running for more.  A Christian should be the most content with where he is, yet the least satisfied with who he is. 

            In our discontentment over our sin however, we still must be careful.  Our discontentment over our sin and state of grace may be out of bounds and sinful too.  For example, if we are viewing our sin as greater than God’s mercy, we have gone too far.  Consider Numbers 21:4-9.

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." 6  Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7  And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. ESV

            When God sent the fiery serpents among the children of Israel, what would have happened if, rather than looking to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up, they had only looked at their wounds?  They would never have been healed.  That sorrow for sin which drives us away from God IS sin!  There is more despair in it than remorse.  Judas was so remorseful for betraying Christ that he confessed his sin to the Pharisees, returned the money, and then went out and hung himself and went to hell.  That was some serious remorse, but it did not end in forgiveness.  It ended in despair.  Why?  Because Judas did not look to Christ and cling to His grace and mercy!  Let us be careful, in our discontentment with our sin, that we do not forget to look to Christ!  In the words of Thomas Watson, “Sorrow in itself does not save (that would be to make a Christ of our tears).” 

             When our sorrow over our sin is not relieved by the grace of God and the mercy and forgiveness of Christ, it makes the heart out of tune for prayer, meditation on the Scriptures, and fellowship with God and other believers.  It secludes the soul.  To quote Watson again, “This is not sorrow, but rather sullenness, and renders a man not so much penitential as cynical.” 

             It is good to be content with our physical condition.  It is good to be discontent with our spiritual condition.  But even in our spiritual discontentment, we must be careful that we do not spend our lives focusing only on our sin.  We must look to Christ and be forgiven.  We must embrace more of His grace!  

More on Contentment

            Contentment is an extremely hard lesson for us to learn.  The angels in heaven did not learn it.  Jude 6 tells us, “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.”  Our first parents, in their innocence, did not learn it.  We read in Genesis 3:5, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  If this lesson was so hard to learn in innocence, how hard shall we find it who are cluttered with corruption? 

            The reason contentment is so difficult to learn is because an earthly heart is like the grave:  it is never satisfied.  Someone once asked one of the Rockefellers how much money was enough.  His answer was, “Always a little more!”  We are never satisfied by the things of this world.  Think of Haman, who was set above all the princes in Persia.  He advanced upon the pinnacle of honor to be the second man in the kingdom, yet in the midst of all his pomp, because Mordecai would not uncover and kneel, he was discontented and full of wrath.  We read in Esther 3:1-5, “After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. 2 And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. 3 Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, "Why do you transgress the king's command?" 4 And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. 5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury.”  In spite of all of his advancements and all of his recognition, the fact that he lacked the praise of Mordecai discontented him!  Haman is a good example of how we can have it all and yet still not be satisfied.

            The apostle Paul had learned contentment.  He said in Philippians 4:11-13, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  As for his outward condition, he was like a reed, bending every way with the wind of Providence.  When a prosperous gale blew upon him, he could bend with that (I know how to be full), and when a boisterous gust of affliction blew, he could bend in humility with that (I know how to be hungry).  Though God had carried him into various conditions, he was not lifted up with one, nor cast down with the other. 

            So, how do we handle our struggle with discontentment and trials?  We see how the Israelites handled them in Numbers 14:27-30.  “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. 28 Say to them, 'As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29  your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.”  Obviously God was not pleased with their complaints.  But, then we also see David, a man after God’s own heart, pouring out his complaint before the Lord.  In Psalm 142:2 he said, “I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him.”  Apparently God was not displeased with David.  What made his complaint different from the complaints of the Israelites in Numbers?  There is a difference in murmuring and appealing.  The Israelites murmured and quarreled with God.  They were accusing God of not dealing well with them.  They felt as though they deserved better from Him.  David appealed to God.  Like a child expresses his pain and discomfort to his earthly father, so we can do to our Heavenly Father.  When any burden is upon the spirit, prayer gives vent; it eases the heart.  Here is the difference between a holy complaint and a discontented complaint.  In the one we complain to God; in the other we complain of God.  

            Let us go to war with our discontentment.  Let us recognize the futility of seeking satisfaction in the things of this world.  Let us recognize the Providence of God in our every situation:  “good” and “bad.”  And let us make our requests known to God in the midst of our “need.”  But as we do, let them be made known with thanksgiving knowing that God is good and works for our good if we love Him and are called according to His purpose. 

Phil 4:6

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

More on contentment in the coming days!

Content or Not Content, that is the Question.

                Recently I picked up an old booklet on contentment by a Puritan named Jeremiah Burroughs.  It is providential that I have it in my possession since 98% of my books are in storage, we are between homes, and since I am prone to discontentment.  I have gleaned much from the pages of his work and thought that you might benefit from those gleanings as well.  Here are some thoughts on contentment.             

                The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11 , “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (ESV).  The word translated content, in its most literal sense, can only be attributed to God, for God alone is all sufficient.  He rests fully satisfied in and with Himself alone.  He is perfectly content.  So, Paul is saying I have a self-sufficiency that enables me to be content in whatever situation I find myself in.  In 2 Corinthians 3:5 he wrote that we are not sufficient (or content) in ourselves, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (ESV).  Paul denied any sufficiency of his own, but declared that his sufficiency was from God. Therefore, true Christian contentment is a sufficiency or satisfaction in our own hearts, through the grace of Christ that is in us. 

             In other words, the Christian’s contentment is not rooted in self, but in Christ.  According to Hebrews 13:5, “Be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you” (ESV).  We can (and should) be content that Christ has promised to never leave us or forsake us.  But often we are not content.

            Discontentment can be evidenced by an anxious spirit.  Contentment is not just the ability to control our words or expressions so that others think we are content.  Many may sit silently, refraining from discontented expressions, yet inwardly they are bursting with a discontented spirit.  That is not contentment.  How often it is that I know the right words to say, Scriptures to quote, and expressions to make, yet within I am in turmoil. 

                We could also be discontent if we are distracted from what we know God wants us to do.  For example, if I find myself so consumed with (fill in the blank) that I am distracted from my personal devotions, family devotions, the ministry of the church, and the Great Commission (those things that I know God expects of me) then I am giving evidence that I am discontent.  Contentment is not characterized by an unsettled and unstable spirit that distracts the heart from the present duty that God requires in our relationships—towards God, others, and ourselves. 

                Finally, discontentment is evidenced by sinking discouragements.  Often (not always) our deep discouragements and depression can be traced to the root of discontentment.  We are unhappy with the place God has us in and find ourselves discontent.  That discontentment takes root and grows until it begins to bear the fruits of deep discouragement, internal darkness, and even depression.  So what does it mean to be content?

                Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.  Contentment is a matter of the heart.  It is an inward contentment.  The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 62:1, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation” (ESV).  Again in Psalm 62:5, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him” (ESV).  Not only does the Psalmist hold his tongue, but his soul is silent as well.  His contentment is a matter of the heart.  Contentment is an inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit.  The contentment of a man or woman who is rightly content does not come so much from outward arguments or help, as from the disposition of their own hearts. 

                Contentment is freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal.  It is the understanding that the Lord knows how to order things better than we do.  I only see things at present, but the Lord sees a great while from now.  That is how Paul could write in 2 Corinthians 6:10, “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (ESV).  True contentment is content in sorrow, poverty, and lack because it knows God is in control.  We are usually apt to think that any condition is better than that condition in which God has placed us.  No one has it as difficult as we do.  This is not contentment.  We are not potters.  We are the clay. Therefore, we must not attempt to be our own carvers.  Whatever particular afflictions God may place us in, we must be content in them knowing that they are not coincidental, but exactly where God wants us at this time.  Would it not be great if it could be said of us that though our circumstances are changed, yet we are the same.  This is how we are to submit to the disposal of God in every condition.

                Contentment is not merely one act—just a flash in a good mood.  You find many men and women who, if they are in a good mood, will be very quiet.  Contentment is not a mood, it is a character trait that can only be given by God’s grace through the power of His Spirit working through the written Word of God.  Are you content?  Really content?  If not, get into the Word of God dependent upon the Spirit of God to pour out the grace of God upon you.  Find your joy, satisfaction, and sufficiency in Christ.  Rest in His Sovereignty, wisdom, omniscience, power, and providence and get ready to fight the same battle tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.  “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” 1 Tim 6:6-8 ESV.