Among Christians, contentment has long been an elusive and underappreciated virtue; Jeremiah Burroughs saw fit to title his book on the subject The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. The book itself is a rare jewel, one that not only examines the virtue but provides practical advice on how to pursue it; you’ll find it reviewed elsewhere in this issue.
Peace is directly connected to contentment—we are at peace with the world when we are content with our circumstances—and so in this age of discontent we should not be surprised to find peace in short supply. Modern secular culture is founded on the belief that all is not right with the world, that progress is both inevitable and vital, that we are morally bound to strive, every day, in every way, to make things better and better.
Some of the outworkings of this foundational belief are all too familiar to us. The modern consumer economy has reached its dizzying heights precisely because the culture has convinced us, pagan and Christian alike, that more is always better, that what we have can never be enough, that contentment can only be found in the things you don’t own—yet. We join with the pagans in celebrating affluence, in organizing our lives so as to maximize our purchasing power, in assuring ourselves (and teaching our children) that the exercise of dominion consists in the accumulation of wealth.
Not content with creating committed consumers, the culture teaches us that contentment lies in becoming someone other than who we now are. The secular self-help industry continues to crank out motivational books, videos, and television programs that instruct us in how to become smarter, thinner, richer, more attractive, more glib, more daring, more loved. Christian merchandisers pile on with tips for being a more loving spouse, for raising a more respectful child, for becoming a more effective witness, for enjoying a more efficient quiet time.
And as if whoring after wealth and well-being weren’t enough to keep us fully occupied, the culture insists that we not be satisfied until our surroundings are subject to our will, until our environment is just the way we like it, until we are master of all that we survey. We must not only know our rights but assert them, lest someone manage to take unfair advantage of us. We must not only have ready opinions on every subject but trumpet them loudly, lest a decision be taken without benefit of our wisdom and insight. We must not only have our own things our own way, but we insist that everyone else have their things our way. We must look out for number one, not hoping or expecting that anyone might look out for us.
Does the church fail to maintain its antithesis even here? Yes, it does. There may not be rights to assert, but there are felt needs to be met. There may not be opinions to be trumpeted, but there are concerns to be shared and gifts to be exercised. We may not insist on having it our way, but we keep a diligent and critical eye on how others tend their gardens. We do not look out for number one; we simply expect to be empowered as we pursue our ministry to others.
So let us hear the conclusion of the matter, as the world would have it. We will enter into contentment once we (a) own everything, (b) are perfect, and (c) have complete control over our circumstances. In other words, we will be content once we have established ourselves as gods. In other words, the world’s thinking on contentment is absurd. And however hard the church works to sanctify such thinking, it remains absurd.
The mistake that leads us to embrace such absurd thinking is a simple one—we confuse contentment with the enjoyment of God’s good gifts, assuming that as our collection of gifts grows, so will our contentment. But in truth, the two matters are entirely unconnected. Our contentment depends not on how well things are going for us, but on how confident we are that all things—our wealth and our poverty, our accomplishments and our weaknesses, our influence and our impotence—all these things work together for our good, since we are those who love God and have been called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28).
Paul had this confidence. He tells the Philippians that “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:11–13) Paul not only knew that he would be given the strength to meet each challenge he faced, he also knew that the challenge itself was one of God’s good gifts to him.
We need to get out of the business of despising God’s good gifts to us. If God calls us to poverty or weakness or impotence, for a season or a lifetime, we are not to avoid these burdens as unwelcome labor, we are to shoulder them as sanctifying challenges that He has chosen specifically for us. And if God blesses us with wealth or accomplishments or influence, we are not to clamber over them in pursuit of even greater blessings, or to minimize them with a pious and embarrassed shrug; we are to rejoice in them and share them with others.
Even more important, we must learn to enjoy a gift that is available to every Christian for the taking, the contentment that flows from our confidence in God. We know what we want, but He knows what we need. We fear the future, but He knows the future. We are weak, but He is strong. Let us rest in the confidence that God is in control, let us be content that all is right with the world, and let us praise and thank Him in advance for the peace which will surely follow.