The College of Contentment..

"I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil 4:11-13).

Jesus is teaching me to be content: Content in all places; content in all stages of life; content with what I have, who I am, and who I will be. As another has well said, He's enrolled me in The College of Contentment, and my only hope is to submit myself to His plan. Can I be content just to be at His side, even if I never have the opportunities my heart longs for? Can you? "Be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Heb 13:5). Sometimes in life, embracing our surroundings is the sole means to Godly contentment. I'm not referring to compromise, but to contented rest. Rather than yelling at heaven with clinched fists, "Why am I thus?!", perhaps we should simply recognize the sovereignty of God, and learn to be content with whatever occasion God decides to bring us through.

The apostle Paul is a wonderful example of Godly contentment. He could be content even in prison, while facing the threat of starvation and torture! He learned how to be content, whether he was humbly abased or fruitfully abounding, it simply didn't matter. And how could that be? How could such a Godly mindset be anything more than a happy hope, and an anticipative aspiration? Friends, it's because Paul's contentment was found within. It was completely unrelated to external pressures and extremes. Paul recognized that true treasure was not to be found from an abundance of worldly goods, or a surplus of happy emotions, but rather from a contented mind. And such contentment was not the distant fulfillment of his carnal wants and likes, but rather it was the realization of the great treasure he already possessed, the earnest of God's Spirit. He rightly knew of the "better and an enduring substance" awaiting him in eternity (Heb 10:34). His stripes therefore, were utterly insignificant!

So how are such Godly affections acquired in the heart of man? As is the case with most valuable qualities, real contentment must be gradually learned: "I have learned, whatever be my outward experiences, to be content" (Phil 4:11, WNT). There is no microwave setting to thrust us to this end. Godly contentment is not a natural propensity of man. On the contrary, covetousness, discontentment, murmuring and the like are as natural to man as thorns are to Earth's soil. We need not sow thistles and wild brambles; they come up naturally enough on their own, because they are indigenous to the sinful climate of earth and fallen man: and so, we need not teach men to complain; we complain easy enough without any external motivation. However, the precious things of the earth must be cultivated. This is the case with Godly contentment: "I have learned... to be content". If we would have wheat, we must plow and sow; if we want flowers, there must be a garden, and all the gardener's care alongside it. Contentment is one of heaven's flowers, and if we would have it, it must be rightly learned and cultivated; it will not grow in us by nature; it is the new nature alone that can produce it, and even then we must be specially careful and watchful that we maintain and cultivate the grace which God has sown in us. If the apostle Paul had to learn contentment, that must mean that he did not know it at one time. It cost him some pains to attain to the mystery of that great truth. Do not indulge the notion that you can be contented with learning, or learn without discipline. It is not a power that may be exercised naturally, but a science to be acquired gradually. We know this from experience. Friends, lets hush our discontented murmurs, natural though they be, and continue as diligent pupils in The College of Contentment, for "godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim 6:6).