The Secret of Contentment

Part 1 of Reflections on the Relational Nature of Being Content

I want to provide full disclosure right up front with this article: I do not have contentment figured out in my life. I am actually a far-too frequently discontent person.

Here’s a live example of this I can share with you: as I write this, my wife just had surgery on her ACL. This was the unfortunate price to pay for the heroic deeds she performed on the local rec league soccer fields. We’re looking at a one year path to full recovery. No driving for six weeks. Months of physical therapy. I’ve been given a significant opportunity to love and serve my wife (and our four young kiddos). And in my moments of grace-filled clarity, I see it as such.

But the selfish, me-centered part of my heart runs in a different direction. My mind drifts to disappointment over a “lost” summer. I think about the drop in income from my wife being unable to work her part-time job. I think about how my kids will struggle with the adjustment, which will require me to give more emotional support to them than they normally need from me. I can see the sacrifices I’ll need to make not as an opportunity to love my wife and my family, but as an inconvenience.

In short, I have many possible channels of discontent open to me right now. I am painfully aware of the fact that my heart could easily run down any of them, probably multiple streams at once. Which is part of the reason I’m writing this article.¹

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Although knowing the channels of my own heart makes me a bit nervous for the season ahead, I have some comfort in the fact that God has graciously taught me some important things about himself over the past few years that relate very well to contentment. He’s used hard circumstances like the death of my brother, a series of ongoing unexpected expenses (I give replacing every appliance in our house over a two year period 0/10 stars), among some other things I won’t get into.

God uses suffering to reveal our hearts, and he’s done a lot of revealing in mine over the past few years. But, in his kindness, he hasn’t just shown me my sin and left me in a puddle of shame. He’s walked towards me in grace. He’s not just forgiven me. He’s given me wisdom to help me begin digging up some of those sinful roots and start the work of re-planting myself in him. This is where the Bible points us - towards the living God.

How does the Bible Use the Word “Contentment”?

As a graduated seminary student who took not one, but two classes on introductory biblical Greek, I consider myself something of a Greek expert.^⁠² Being such an expert, I can authoritatively inform you that our English word for “contentment” comes from the Greek word ἀρκέω (ar-kay-oh). Here’s how the word gets used in a few different New Testament passages^⁠³ (italics indicate where a form of ἀρκέω is used:

• But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ - Matthew 25:9

• Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” - Luke 3:14

• Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” - John 14:8

• But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. - 2 Corinthians 12:9

At a basic level, with no fancy theologizing going on, what do you see in how this word is being used?

From the mundane (Jesus’ disciples saying they’re not going to have enough food) to the enormously significant (Phillip saying if Jesus shows them the Father, it’s sufficient) this word conveys a sense of fullness. A completeness. A wholeness. Having x brings completion to y. “This is enough.”

It’s what King David gets at in his opening words of Psalm 23:

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” (KJV, ESV)

Some translations take a slightly different angle:

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I lack nothing.” (NIV, NET)

Having God as his Shepherd leads David to a place of contentment, regardless of his circumstances. He can walk even through the valley of the shadow of death so long as his God is with him (spoiler alert: God always is).

But God Doesn’t Expect Me to Be Content in a Traffic Jam…Right?

When it comes contentment, we tend to focus on the big things. Contentment in our job or our marriage. Contentment in the face of significant suffering. We wonder, “Can I be content in the face of cancer?” But our tendency towards discontent gets exposed far more frequently in the little things.

Permit me a side tangent in which I utilize an illustration from my home - the great state of Wisconsin. As a born-and-raised Wisconsinite, I promise I will find a way to work cheese into this case study.

You are driving south on I-94 trying to get through Milwaukee and you are surrounded in an ocean of stop-and-go traffic - the terrible, woeful combination of massive construction projects and rush hour. There is no escape. No exit that will provide the refuge of a faster route. You are stuck. You have no control. You have no choice but to endure the purgatorial torture that is 5 mph bumper-to-bumper traffic for the next five miles. Irritability begins swarming in your soul. Also, you have no cheese.^⁠⁴ Annoyance starts spreading in your heart. Why?

When you are stuck in traffic (whether in Milwaukee or LA or New York), who put you in that traffic jam? Answer: God.

Who has good purposes unbeknownst to you for that traffic jam? Answer: God. Even my Arminian, free-will focused friends would recognize this as an opportunity to press into the Lord rather than give into sinful irritation.

Discontent wells up within a heart that is falsely oriented in the belief, “I am the center of the universe.” We put ourselves at the center of the story.

Even in a traffic jam, you are still in God’s story. Irritation, annoyance, and anger at being in a traffic jam (or having to wait in line or on hold) expose a belief that you are the point. This traffic is disrupting your life. Your story. But…it’s not actually your story. You’ve forgotten that the story you’re in is one where God is the point. You exist in a God-centered universe. And when you lose sight of that, the roots of discontent find rich soil to grow in.

Two (Hopefully Helpful) Definitions of Christian Contentment

Okay. We’ve gone all this way and I haven’t actually given you a clear definition of contentment actually is. Allow me to fix that, first by giving you a robust and arguably overlong definition:

Christian contentment is a growing persuasion [you are becoming increasingly convinced] in your heart that God has good and loving purposes behind every moment and minute detail of your life - from the highest mountains of joy and success to the deepest valleys of sorrow and suffering; from the smallest of temporary pleasures to the tiniest of life’s slight inconveniences, contentment recognizes that God’s good and deeply intimate hand is behind it all. Christian contentment trusts that God is always at work in shaping me to love him more and be more like him.

And for those of you skimming this article (I know, I know…this is long), here’s a shorter definition:

Christian contentment means trusting God’s ultimate goodness in your circumstances, submitting to his will, and embracing that he is shaping you to love him more and be more like him.

In giving you these definitions, I want to be clear about something: Christian contentment does not pretend that suffering is not suffering or that injustice is not injustice. The content Christian heart feels deeply. It does not seek to diminish or excuse the reality of hard things.

Jeremiah Burroughs, the Puritan pastor, put it well when he wrote, “God gives his people leave to be sensible of what they suffer. Christ does not say, ‘Do not count as a cross what is a cross’; he says, ‘Take up your cross daily.’”⁵

And yet, Christian contentment remains, well…content…in the best and worst of seasons. Because Christian contentment has frightfully little to do with your circumstances. It has everything to do with your relationship with the Triune God.

True Contentment Happens Relationally

You cannot move towards true contentment apart from doing business with the Triune God of the universe, who is deeply relational. We do not live in a “facts don’t care about your feelings” reality. The Triune God, from whom all truth derives existence, really loves us enough to enter into relationship with us.

I used to roll my eyes when I’d a Christian wearing a “It’s not a religion; it’s a relationship” T-shirt. I’d mentally fire off James 1:27 with smug satisfaction.^⁠⁶ But I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom that old adage is anchored in. God being a Trinity means relationship is absolutely core to who he is.^⁠⁷

One of the hard truths God has shown me recently is that I’ve spent much of my Christian life avoiding relationship with God. Not entirely, of course. I’ve certainly sought the Lord in prayer regularly. But I can get really excited about studying technical truths in God’s Word while failing to have any excitement over going to God in prayer. And my ratio of time spent in prayer compared to time spent in God’s Word is, shall we say, unhealthy.⁸

Again, Christian contentment has everything to do with your relationship with God. Relating to him (praying to him, talking to him, sharing your heart with him, asking his help) is the only way to move forward to real satisfaction and fullness.

Christian contentment is not Stoicism. You can pursue contentment by keeping a gratitude journal, thinking positive thoughts rather than negative ones, holding your blessings with an open hand of acceptance, and prioritizing virtue over material possessions. But that’s not the heartbeat of biblical contentment. Those are band-aids on a gaping wound that can only be healed by communion with God.^⁠⁹

If you’re not convinced yet, my aim in the next post will be to prove it to you by looking at what I think are the three most significant passages on contentment in the New Testament:

• Philippians 4:10–13

• 1 Timothy 6:6–8 and 17

• Hebrews 13:5–6

Lord willing (and so far as it depends on me), I’ll share that post next week. Until then, if you have time, take a look at each of these and prayerfully ask, what do these verses teach us about contentment? How do these verses encourage us to relate and converse with the God of the Bible? What is the key ingredient of contentment in each of these passages?

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1. This content is based off of a talk I gave at the men’s ministry of my church several weeks ago.

2. Disclaimer: I am decidedly not an expert on Greek and no part of this blog post should be interpreted as suggesting that I am an authority of any kind on this subject.

3. As a good (and totally depraved) Calvinist, I am utilizing the ESV translation throughout this article.

4. Told you I’d do it. And I worked it in as smooth as cheddar, too.

5. Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.

6. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” - James 1:27

7. See Michael Reeves’ fantastic book Delighting in the Trinity for a short and accessible reflection on what the Trinity means for who God is and how we relate to him.

8. These two things are not exclusive. I’ve long been convinced that time in prayer should happen as we read the Word. Reading the Word should lead us into conversation with God. But if I’m honest with myself, when I sit with my Bible, there’s lots of analysis and not nearly enough conversation.

9. Don’t get me wrong. A gratitude journal is a good idea. Counting your blessings and focusing on the good rather than negative are good ideas. But if you do these things without bringing your heart to the living God, you’re not pursuing contentment in a Christian way. You’re missing the most important “step” in the process.