Fidgety. I heard this word plenty when growing up, along with restless, wiggly, and the dreaded, hyper. I had trouble sitting still, being calm and self-contained. Rather, my childhood was marked by the observation that I was “impulsive, antsy, and always in motion.” Now, a lot of that was personality, immaturity, and boredom, which time and maturity tempered; but, at least some of it reflected a spiritual void that spoke of the absence of God’s redeeming presence in my life.
The Apostle Paul tells his young protégé, Timothy, that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). Now, I can easily understand that godliness is great gain; so much of the Scripture points to the blessings of following the Lord, pursuing righteousness and godliness, and living according to God’s created norms. The “gain” of godliness is pretty easy to grasp, even “godliness” itself appears hard to attain.
But, godliness “with contentment” is a mind-twister. Having some vague picture of contentment, some understanding of its essence, it is a challenge to think of it as a companion to “godliness.” In my pursuit of godliness, I am striving, straining, running the race laid out of me (Hebrews 12:1-2). “Contentment” appears the exact opposite of my experience. But, perhaps that tells me I have failed to understand contentment.
The Puritans spoke of contentment as “a sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit.” It is a divine gift, infused within us by our Lord, deeply rooted in the Savior’s redeeming work, revealing itself in times of plenty and of want. Contentment is not passivity, it is not the failure to act, but the actions of one who is fully aware of his/her dependency upon a sovereign Lord.
The experience of contentment is marked by:
- a free submission to the sovereign reign of God, trusting all of life’s circumstances, both difficult and prosperous, to the will of the heavenly, loving Father.
- an embrace of the sufficiency of Christ in all matters. Through union with Christ all true needs are met and fulfilled beyond imagining.
- a learned discipline of grace, taught by the school of trials. God prepares us for a life resting fully in Him.
- an active submission to God’s providence, finding pleasure in His will rather than one’s own.
- a soul devoted to His care. Our desires become shaped more and more by the Lord Himself, so that selfishness diminishes in the light of His loving compassion.
In the Bible, contentment has an opposite: covetousness. The contented believer is a person who has Christ and therefore realizes they have enough. Yearning for what God has not provided so that we deny His grace and gifts is a sure sign of the absence of contentment. The temptation to compare, covet, and jealously seek to possess more robs one of the happiness of contentment that God provides His people. To be content is to live a life of gratitude, finding such deep joy in God’s sovereignty and grace that one is liberated from the anxious pursuit of worldly security.
Here is a contentment I long to see in my life… and in yours! To the praise of His glory, Henry