1 Timothy 6:6-10
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
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Do you ever find yourself wishing and hoping for contentment? If you aren't searching for it now, I am sure that you have looked for it at some point in your life.
You find yourself praying, "If I just had a boyfriend...a husband...another child (or just one child, please)...a new job (or just A job)...some new clothes....I would be content."
And then when you get what you want, you are content for a while, but then you find yourself wishing for more or something else.
Many of us are constantly looking for the next step of contentment in our lives.
Personally, I am not one for material possessions. I cannot even tell you the last time I bought something for myself. And my husband and I (my husband mostly) drove around in my 10 year old college clunker with no air for two years until we finally decided we HAD to get a new car. And this was only after the repair man told us that what we were driving was no longer safe.
But recently, I have found myself thinking about a possession....a bigger house. We have lived in an adorable house for eight years, one that we love very much. Everything has been redone and we've created so many wonderful memories here, but our boys are growing and the toys are taking over, and we just need more space.
Some days I imagine how wonderful it would be to actually walk into an uncluttered garage and be able to find something, or enter a child's room without stubbing my toe on the train table that just barely fits inside. I think how content I would be when I actually have a back yard where I can play with the kids, rather than a front paved driveway that is enclosed by a gate.
And so, in my search for contentment, we stumbled upon a house for sale a few weeks ago, a bigger house, a house that my husband and I fell in love with.
Sure, there were a few things that we knew we would need to update down the road, but overall, we could see ourselves raising our family in this house and growing old there together.
So we took the bold step of making an offer on the house. The idea of moving into this bigger and better house was so exciting, but the adrenaline soon wore off when we found out that our offer was not accepted.
I thought I was o.k. when the offer fell through. "Everything happens for a reason," I said to my family and close friends.
But last week I found myself driving by the house that we had hoped to purchase the other day. And I burst into tears, thinking that the bigger house, the adorable house, could have been ours. We would have been so content, I thought.
And it wasn’t until today, when my husband arrived home from being out of town, that I questioned my search for contentment. I began to wonder how I got so wrapped up in a possession....a house, when right in front of me, my children, who I am so blessed to have, were belly laughing while they played in the leaves that had fallen from our olive trees onto our paved "front yard." And my sweet husband, with whom I have such an amazing relationship, was smiling at THEIR contentment. How could I not be content with what I already have in front of me?
I found some great advice in my "Mom's Devotional Bible" (devotionals by Elisa Morgan, president of Mothers of Preschoolers, International) recently:
"Contentment comes as we view our circumstances through the lens of our relationship with God and what he is trying to accomplish in our lives. Contentment will involve:
1. Putting GOD first and THINGS second.
2. Looking for God in every moment-not just the pleasant but the unpleasant, not just the easy but the difficult, not just the simple but the hard.
3. Rejecting our cultural definitions of success. A successful life is one that begins with the Bible's view of what really matters: knowing and loving God."
Morgan writes, “Contentment is a life of inner peace rather than one of outer ease.”
Eventually, we will have to move, and we will continue to keep our eyes open for a house with more space. After all, I don’t have many more toes to stub.
But while we search for that house, I won’t look forward to the contentment that I think I will find then, instead I will find contentment in the life that I am leading now.
So when you find yourself forgetting that you already are so blessed with what you already have, remember Paul’s words in his short letter to his friend Timothy:
"For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it."
-1 Timothy 6:7
Possessions mean nothing. God means everything!
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