Examine yourself - Contentment 005

Examine yourself -  Contentment 005

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. (Philippians 4:11 ESV)

LEARNED

The Word and the Spirit - our two key blessings for learning - our two essential and necessary blessings.

But - we don't have to be passive.  Actually we shouldn't be.

Remember that old song, I Fall Asleep Counting My Blessings?  Well it's better to count them before you fall asleep.

Now for most of us, keeping a journal or diary is just not something we consider.  But it is a valuable investment of time and effort.  Just as God has recorded His will and work in the Bible, we can record His will and work in our lives in a diary or a journal.

I think this works best if we keep it simple - and I've tried just about every method possible from a voice recorder to a "cloud" journal.  After a lot of stops and starts, I ended up back at paper and pen.  

Here's what I use.  I have a Moleskine Monthly Notebook - the pocket size.  I have two pages for the current month and two blank lined pages after the two monthly pages.  I keep my calendar and then on the two blank-lined pages I keep track of what God is doing in my life.  

I don't go into great detail - I write just enough to inform myself later.

Why?

If we don't keep some kind of record, we will forget and miss opportunities for prayer, repentance - opportunities for growth.

Ever been in a meeting and spoken ill?  Well you can "jot" that down in the notebook without making a big deal of it.  

Ever had someone ask for prayer and then much later you remember?  Jot it down in the notebook.  Heard a great insight in a sermon?  Jot it down.  Ever been blindsided by your sin?  Jot is down.  Even gotten an unexpected blessing?  Jot it down.

It is said that those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.  Well, if there is no history kept, we're just going to keep making the same mistakes and sinning the same sins.

OK - so someone out there is going to ask where I keep my business notes if my personal notes are in the notebook.  Simple, I use 3x5 cards for meeting notes.  They fit in the notebook cover I got from, Levengers for my Moleskine - no problem.  The cards get filed in a small 3x5 index file box and there ya go.

The main point is that in order to effectively examine ourselves we really do need to keep some kind of record.  Ever gone to worship feeling like it was the last place you wanted to go and then left worship walking inches off the ground?  That needs to be recorded and examined.  Ever had a sermon or lesson "hit you the wrong way”? (yeah - as if we get hit a right way) -- Anyway, this is something worth noting and examining later --- "Why?"

Look, you're going to find sin when you do this - and that's good.  It should be no great shock anyway - godly dismay yes - shock no.  This isn't about beating yourself up.  It's about getting to know, understand and appreciate you and your walk in the Way.

Another great use for recording this is that it really does "preserve" the evidence that you are His and growing in Him.  With my counseling clients, I always keep a sheet in their file that lists all the wonderful and powerful things they share - ya know why?  Because they don't - so they forget the very evidence the experience.  It's really wonderful to testify to someone about the Lord working in and through them from evidence they themselves gave me weeks or months before.

Think about this - sin is sin is sin - right?  Growth is growth is growth - right?  But you are utterly unique - totally unique by God's design.  So your sin and your growth are totally unique - there are no cookie-cutters on the Way.  We get made of the same stuff but every mold is broken after one use.

If you are the object of God's grace and mercy, you certainly can pay a little attention to yourself - right?

Write it down - examine it - rejoice and/or repent - but, examine yourself.

Examine yourself - Contentment 001

I'm beginning a series on Contentment.  Why"  Well because "things" are tough for a lot of us right now and if you're like Patti and I, it's is really easy to get bogged down in them.  I'm not writing form some ivory tower but from the trenches where "hand to mouth," is a very  uncomfortable reality.  We are struggling on living "God to mouth," and it's tough - contentment is a real challenge.

Examine yourself - Contentment  001

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 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. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.  (Philippians 4:11-13 ESV)

Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.   (1 Timothy 6:6-8 ESV)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" 

(Hebrews 13:5-6 ESV)

One of the signs of our maturing in the faith is contentment.  I don't know about you - but for me that's a tough one.  From my studies I see contentment as the resulting sense or composure of trusting in God's goodness and the goodness of His providence.

If you read the verse above closely it is obvious that what battles against contentment is - well - stuff.  By stuff I mean everything in this world from food to all that neat goodies.  Regardless of the stuff we look at (food or cultural signs of prosperity) contentment is tough.

Contentment is not just sucking it up and carrying on.  There is a definitive element of satisfaction in true contentment.  It's a "This is fine," perspective on our present conditions and provision.  Like I said, it's tough.

Of course the clearest demonstration of the lack of contentment is seen in Israel's exodus from Egypt.  Once they were out they immediately began to grumble and mummer against God.  Basically they felt that all He had done was not sufficient for them to trust Him and they didn't see what He was doing as "good enough."

They "murmured," or "grumbled," against God and His provision.

They were DIS-contented.  Discontent has within it elements of bitterness and anger so we may assume that contentment is, at least in part, an absence of bitterness and anger.

But here's my conundrum.  I find that event though I don't express bitterness and anger at God's provision I am still anxious and fretful about it.  I also have to admit that when His provision is not what I wanted or expected I fall into a rather grudging "suck it up and take it," mode.

What I want to do is to live with praise and thanksgiving in my heart for what He has given me right now.  That is number one.  Then, number two is to joyfully and expectantly look forward to whatever He has for me in tomorrow.  

I find the worst word that can com to my mind is, "but."  

BUT;

It's not what I wanted

It's not what I expected

It's not what I needed

It's no what "I" ---------

BUT:

Will He provide for this need I know it coming and what do I do if He doesn't?

Will He give enough?

Will He determine that I am to go through a trial concerning this?

Then there are all the possible negative scenarios that may result.  Then there are all the possible ways I can fix it.  The there are all the reasons that He should just ell me that I made my bed and I'll have to lie in it - alone.  Then there are all the reasons I know I don't deserve for Him to do anything.

Yeah, it kind of snowballs in your head and weighs heavily on your heart.  

Working backwards, the passage from Hebrews is a help.  The writer begins with the admonition to, "Keep your life free from love of money,"  Nice translation but a little short.  Actually the word means "unavoritious," or "un-coveting."  of course the idea is to not love money but it is bigger - much bigger than that.

Money is a means - a means of power and a means of provision.  This is why Jesus tells us we can either love Mammon (money) or God but not both.  We can get want we want and need via money (a mere means)- or we can get what we truly need (wants are another matter) from God.

Here's the conflict.  Money I can "get" or God I must trust.

So this is where we begin - hope you'll follow along!

This and That: Contentment 092412

But contentment does not come in that way, it does not come, I say, by adding to what you want, but by subtracting from your desires. It is all one to a Christian, whether I get up to what I would have, or get my desires down to what I have, either to attain what I do desire, or to bring down my desires to what I have already attained. 

Burroughs, Jeremiah (2010-07-05). The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Kindle Locations 504-506).  . Kindle Edition.

Having entered the fray with covetousness it seemed good to add a dash of contentment to the mix.  In Burroughs’ work you will find much to guide you, challenge you and comfort you.

The above quote, I take as guidance, challenge and comfort.  Since it is my mis-guided or mis-motivated desires that so plague me in the area of covetousness it makes sense that addressing them is part of the way to contentment.

BUT – I would have you know that just knowing how to learn (and it must be learned) to be content is not enough.  We must attend the class, study the material and take the test.  Contentment comes through learning.

Paul writes:

Php 4:11-13  Not that I am speaking of being in need, for 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.

Whatever part of the course in contentment I am in (as we do not all start at the same point or progress at the same rate) the absolute key to the learning is Christ.  It is only His strength that keeps me in the course.  It is only His Word that helps me learn the lessons.  It is only His wisdom that enables me to rightly apply His cure to the condition.  It is not only, “all of /Christ,” it is “only of Christ.”

Contentment is having what I want or wanting what I have in absolute submission to the will and providence of God.  A crumb from our King is as glorious a gift as a coronet.  This we must labor to understand and implant in our hearts.  But that only comes through Him, our strength.

In this early stage of moving out of covetousness and into contentment the most difficult thing is to accept the depth of the corruption of the heart.  The ways, means and measure of the covetousness that lives in the flesh is terrifyingly large.  You cut one root only to find another and another and yet another still.  You cease to covet X and you find half the victory is wrapped up in coveting Y and Z is lurking just out of sight.

I was once told that there were really only 9 individual commandments because the 10^th, “thou shalt not covet,” simply meant that we would not even want to do the preceding 9. 

We are caught up in the world’s expectation of more, bigger and better and the shame of it is that we serve the One to whom it all belongs.  If one gets what they covet from a thief (Satan) it is not the same as getting it from the true owner.  Satan will give you what you want especially if it draws you away from God.  God will not give you what you cannot benefit from.  To whom would you go for a cure?  Patient “0” or the best doctor you could find – or the One who controls every disease and comfort?

If you would be content you must get to heaven for only there will we find absolute contentment?  Here, in this veil of tears, we must constantly and consistently, in the strength of our Savior, strive after it; one time laying hold of it another missing.

Heb 13:5-6  Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  (6)  So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"

Here is the bottom line of contentment.  He has promised to never leave of FORSAKE us.

Forsake:  By implication, to leave in the lurch, desert, abandon.

1Ch 28:20  Then David said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the LORD God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD is finished.

In the end, it all goes back to the heart:

If the heart of a man is fashioned to his circumstances, he may have as much contentment as if his circumstances were fashioned to his heart.

Burroughs, Jeremiah (2010-07-05). The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Kindle Locations 510-511).  . Kindle Edition.

God can, and will, change my heart and/or my circumstances.  I can really do neither – at least not if I am submitted to Him.  That I am never without my Redeemer and that he will never “leave me in a lurch,” is the truth upon which I must place my feet and the truth I must work into my heart.

Learning contentment does not come easy. The flesh, finding covetousness a most useful tool, fights tooth and talon to keep it alive and active.  It will not go peacefully and so, in dealing with it, we will have to accept the tribulation, the fight, and the blows.  The object is not to tame it or to convert it but to kill it.  It is a fight to the death – its death - for all being said, it cannot kill us.  It can cripple and maim but it can never kill.

Isa 35:4  Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you."

The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances.

Burroughs, Jeremiah (2010-07-05). The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Kindle Locations 514-515).  . Kindle Edition.