Our Scripture for this post is Philippians 4:11-12 ~
"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." ~ New International Version
"Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty." ~ The Message Bible
Contentment...
W.O.W.
What a word for today.
What a wonderful word to explore for today's society,
that...includes you and me!
What words pop
That's what
Here is what my computer's Thesaurus says:
- Happiness
- Satisfaction
- Fulfillment
- Pleasure
- Cheerfulness
- Ease
- Comfort
- Well Being
- Serenity
- Tranquility
So.....here is Paul, the author of Philippians, writing this book while
chained to a Roman guard.
But he has with these feelings of contentment
running through him like a might river!!
Could I do that?
Could you do that?
When I have a frustrating day at work, i.e., lots of interruptions,
office machine malfunctions, a project taking waaaaayyy too long
because of the process I am stuck with, coffee spilling all over my
desk....ugh.....
I want to lean toward losing my peace...
letting my frustration volumize up in me like a rolling stream
of lava from a volcano.
I must stop that more often and become THANKFUL for my job.
It is a gift from God. A TRUE Gift from God.
Everyone is so nice to me there!
Contentment.....
In research for this word at www.preceptaustin.org,
I found this sermon dated November 13, 2005 from Pastor Mark Adams
of Redland Baptist Church in Rockville, Maryland.
It is entitled, "Crossing From Covetousness To Contentment".
Pastor Adams states in his sermon that the opposite of contentment,
discontentment, starts with self-centeredness.
An "It's all about me" attitude.
This is not a Biblical way to live.
Jesus' example to us while He was here on earth was servanthood.
This started way back in the Garden of Eden.
Eve's sin was discontentment.
Pastor Adams says:
"... in his book, Authentic Faith, Gary Thomas puts it this way. He says,
"Contentment is nothing more than 'soul rest.' It is satisfaction, peace, assurance, and a sense of well-being that is cultivated by pursuing the right things. Instead of more power, more money, more pleasure, and more control, ...we seek an 'abundance' of grace and peace...contentment is the opposite of striving, aching, restlessness, and worry."
W.O.W. ~ leave it to Pastor Hybels to hit the nail on top of the head
In another sermon that Pastor Adams preached, entitled
"It Is Well With My Soul"
he told the story of an elderly woman named Mable.
(Warning....this is looonnngg, but sooooo worth it....)
"In his book, Trying to be Good, Bob Schmidt tells about a friend he made in a state-run convalescent hospital—an elderly woman whose name was Mabel. He writes,
The hospital was not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless, lonely people who are basically waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for three years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. One Mother’s Day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This particular hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts of into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless. As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped on eye, and distorted her jaw...so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly.
I was told later that when NEW nurses arrived, the supervisors would send THEM to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel. I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. Much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’ I said, ‘Of course,’ and pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’ That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being.
Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For 25 years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomachaches, and then the cancer came.
Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed—especially on Sundays when I usually visited—the stench was often overpowering. Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs.
For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns. During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of that things that I had to think about.
The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’ And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’ I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately: ‘I think about how good He’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. I’m one of those kind who’s most satisfied...most CONTENTED...because of His friendship. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.’ An then Mabel began to sing an old hymn: ‘Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day, Without Him I would fall. When I am sad, to Him I go, No other one can cheer me so. When I am sad, He makes me glad. He’s my friend.’
Mabel was a great student of contentment wasn’t she? She graduated with honors! It didn’t matter how much pain and sorrow—or how unfair life was for her—she had learned to trust and love her Lord. She developed a close relationship with Him—a relationship that satisfied her deepest longing...and that enabled her to be content even in her horrible circumstances—it gave her a peace like a river. It made her soul WELL."
I can think of no other way to end this but to play"It Is Well With My Soul".
If you would like more information about the history of this
wonderful hymn, beyond what is in the video;
click on the link for Pastor Adams sermon entitled the
same name. Pastor Adams adds details that I had never
heard before.
Allow me to say as Pastor Adams did in his sermon...
"Let me ask—how are YOU doing when it comes to learning this vital lesson? How content are you? Have you become able to trust God no matter what happens?"
Let's work on our thankfulness and serving others,
Debbie G.
