Contentment: A Desire Fulfilled

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about contentment. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (4:11 ESV). Interestingly, the Greek word translated as contentment is translated as sufficiency in 2 Corinthians 9:8: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” That puts a little different spin on things. We generally think of contentment as a state of mind—being happy with our circumstances. However, sufficiency is more of a state of being—having enough.

Paul combines those ideas in 1 Timothy 6:6-8, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, 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.” If we have what is sufficient for survival, we should then be content. However, as we all know that is rarely the case. We can always think of things that we wish we had—relationships, abilities, possessions, etc.

Melissa Kruger commented in a recent “Let’s Talk” podcast, “What shifted is I recognized I have a heart problem, not a circumstance problem. So, that changes how I fight the battle. I realize I’m going to be fighting this battle with discontentment my whole life, but I fight it differently.” The problem is not what we’re lacking but what we’re idolizing. Anything that takes our eyes off God has the potential to make us discontented. If our delight is in God, our desires are fulfilled because He is what we desire most (Psalm 37:4).

The Apostle Peter wrote that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3). I don’t think we really believe that to be true most of the time. I know I’ve tended to interpret that in a strictly spiritual sense, and therefore I haven’t appreciated His provision of food, shelter, and relationships as I should.

Paul David Tripp wrote in War of Words,

“The blessings God gives you in your family, job, home, church, friends, and community are meant to do something for you. They are meant to point you to the deeper and fuller blessing of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. He is life! Abundant life is not your spouse, children house, car, possessions, job, friends, or church. Abundant life is Jesus Christ! The amazing reality is that he is ours and we are his! This is the bread worth living for” (95).

We don’t always remember to let the gifts point us back to the Giver. We desire things that God never promised and that we don’t really need. We confuse wants with needs, and fail to recognize God’s gracious provision. We forget that He is a good Father and that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). In Tripp’s words,

“May God help us to be people who see the sign behind the miracle, who look at earthly blessing and say, ‘These blessings point me to the deeper, fuller reality of Christ in my life. What I hunger for and what I want my life to be about is fellowship with, love for, and obedience to my Lord Jesus Christ’” (100).

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You” (Psalm 73:25).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Desire and Hope

“O Lord, You hear the desire of the afflicted; You will strengthen their heart; You will incline Your ear” (Psalm 10:17 ESV).

As I read this verse this week, I started thinking about the many different desires I have for myself and for others—spiritual, relational, vocational, physical—some small, some more grand. I wrote several down in my prayer journal. I’m sure we all have good desires in every area of our lives. David and the other psalmists wrote often of our desires:

• “May He grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans!” (Ps. 20:4).
• “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).
• “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You” (Ps. 73:25).
• “You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing… He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him; He also hears their cry and saves them” (Ps. 145:16, 19).

It is encouraging to remember that God knows all those desires, and that He knows best how to fulfill our desires in His own time and way. No, He won’t give us everything we want, but He will give us what He deems best. We have reason to hold on to hope, because God listens to our hearts and keeps us in His hand.

Even if we don’t see our desires fulfilled in this lifetime, in eternity we will find all good things. John Eldredge wrote:

“Desire cannot live without hope. Yet we can only hope for what we desire. There simply must be something more, something out there on the road ahead of us, that offers the life we prize. To sustain the life of the heart, the life of deep desire, we desperately need to possess a clearer picture of the life that lies before us... When we are convinced that something delicious is about to be ours, we are free to live in expectation, and it draws us on in anticipation” (The Journey of Desire, 105, 163-164).

Augustine put it this way:

“The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when He comes you may see and be utterly satisfied” (Commentary on the First Epistle of John).

In this broken world, it can be tempting to try to kill desire or pretend it doesn’t matter. Instead, we should look for the God-given desires that are at the root of all other desires. As we seek God’s will in Scripture, our desires are refined and brought into alignment with God’s desires. I’m sure it delights God when we ask Him to do things that are already in His plan. Like children growing up, we start out wanting whatever pleases us, but as we mature we start wanting better things both for ourselves and for those we love.

I want to desire God’s best, though I know I often settle for something much less valuable. It is my hope and prayer that God will take my lesser desires and turn them into something far beyond all I can ask or imagine. For now I’ll trust that He hears, He knows, and He cares.

“Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 NKJV).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

The Real Heaven

It occurred to me recently how incredible it is that we live in a society that is relatively moral and self-controlled. Having witnessed firsthand the rebellion that leads some people to do stupid things (in this case, a reckless driver endangering pedestrians), it’s actually amazing that the vast majority of people are usually law-abiding citizens. I think that’s why it is so often hard to convince people that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 ESV). People who are outwardly “good people” don’t want to be told they are sinners. People wonder how God could send “good people” to hell when they can come up with a long list of things that they think justify their entrance to heaven. We can all think of people who “deserve” hell far more than the average moral person.

The irony is that many of the same people who think they deserve heaven would be appalled to think that they’d spend eternity praising God and growing in knowledge of Him. If you aren’t interested in a relationship with God in this life, why would you want to spend eternity with Him? The church has not always done a very good job of explaining what eternal life is all about. We’ve adopted images of heaven that have more in common with Islam than with the Bible. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven.) We don’t even know how to deal with stories of near death experiences or how they relate to the real afterlife as described in Scripture. Scot McKnight writes, “It seems to me in the flourishing of these [near death experiences], many Christians will want once again to take a whole new look at what the Bible says about heaven. What they will find, in almost all cases, is a view of heaven that is quite unlike what is experienced in the [near death experiences].”

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as He leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness?” (The Problem of Pain, 96–97)

Many people want eternal happiness on their own terms, apart from any relation to the God who created us. They want to edit Romans 8:21-23 to say “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain freedom,” and conveniently ignore the fact that it is the “children of God” who “wait eagerly for adoption as sons.” Only those who know God as Father want the kind of life that He offers. Some preachers try to convert people by saying in essence, “Do you want to avoid hell and go to heaven? Then just believe in Jesus.” What they leave out is a biblical description of eternity as children of God who love and glorify Him.

“But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). Many who long for what they call heaven are completely uninterested in the dwelling place of righteousness. They’d rather have a place of free license to do whatever they want. People want the promises of Revelation 21:4: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away;” but they don’t care about the presence of God described in 21:3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” We can’t one without the other.

The older I get and the more I see the brokenness of this world, the more I long for the Second Coming of Christ, not just so the brokenness will be fixed and the earth made new, but so I can enjoy the presence of the One I’ve come to know and love. I’m coming to understand what John Piper calls the “superior pleasure” of knowing God, or as Thomas Chalmers called it, “The expulsive power of a new affection.” One day the true desires of our hearts will be revealed and either fulfilled in Christ or destroyed in judgment.

“‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20).

© 2017 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise noted all images are from pixabay.com. 

Unexpected Answers

The month of May is our denominational prayer month. Besides the prayer blogs we’ve posted, we also hosted a prayer summit and prayed together as led by some nationally known speakers on prayer. At the same time, I’ve been reading some interesting books, one of which is Praying for Your Elephant, by Adam Stadtmiller. I’m not sure I agree with everything in the book since I haven’t finished it yet, but it has challenged me to begin praying more boldly and specifically.

Then last week came and I was surprised to learn that a house I’d been interested in was going to be sold and I had first choice. I was both excited and terrified by the possibility. My beginning prayer was, “If this is Your will, make the asking price within my desired range.” It was a few days later when I learned that God had answered that prayer, but during that few days God did something I didn’t expect. He revealed to me my heart’s desire. As I posted last week, I found that I had some priorities that outweighed my desire to own a home. I realized that the price of the house didn’t really matter anymore. I’m more convinced than ever that prayer changes us, not God. I got what I thought was the elephant I was asking for, but God also gave me something far better—an opportunity to see Him at work.

As the week drew to a close, I realized that it had been an opportunity to practice Romans 12:2 (ESV): “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” I’d started the week feeling somewhat pressured to conform to the world’s standards and the American dream. It took a few days for me to understand why that made me uncomfortable. Although I hadn’t specifically intended to search the Scriptures to see what they said about owing money or owning property, God brought to my mind some particular verses and themes that I had read in the past, and that helped me to know that His will for me was to do something kind of countercultural. At the same time, I knew that God’s love would not change regardless of what I chose, but that my joy would be made complete by abiding in Him and trusting in His provision for me. I didn’t need to worry about the next 30 years, but just be faithful to Him this week.

I also found that God had followed through on the promise of Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.” It would have been easy to trust my understanding and the world’s wisdom that investing in property often (but not always) pays off. But trusting God and seeking His guidance led to a very different path than I started out on. My path may not look like anyone else’s and it may not make sense to others, but His way is a straight path toward His destination.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will act” (Psalm 37:4-5). Although I’ve long known that this Scripture doesn’t mean God will always give me what I think I want, it was reiterated for me through this process. My superficial desire was peeled back to reveal the true desires of my heart. I found my delight was truly in God and not in the things of this world. I had committed my way to Him and trusted Him, and He acted by showing me more of Himself.

We can miss so much when we start seeking answers to prayer rather than seeking God. I don’t know if I would have prayed differently if I had known how everything would turn out. I don’t believe my original request was wrong, but it was colored by a lot of things that needed to be stripped away: cultural impressions, the influence of certain people, planning for the future, etc. It’s not necessarily wrong to pray for elephants, but you might discover that what you really want is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

It’s funny—the possibility of buying a house made me suddenly feel like a grown-up, but God was in the process of making me grow in faith. Spiritual maturity is so much more important, and yet there are so many Christians who are willing to settle for the superficial answers and a lukewarm faith. I don’t want to settle. I want to glorify God with every decision, trusting the One who knows best, and delighting in Him.

“How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! …Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:17, 23-24).

Do What?!

The Australian Open Tennis Tournament made the news recently when an interviewer asked Eugenie Bouchard to twirl to show off her outfit. Although I missed that bit of “news,” it came to my attention later through a post by Matt Reagan on the Desiring God blog. Reagan’s post drew quite a bit of negative attention on their Facebook feed as being sexist in itself, along with not making a great deal of sense. I wanted to make a couple comments on his post, but then to look at what Scripture has to say.

Reagan implies that twirling is an activity pursued by little girls, but not little boys. Evidently he hasn’t spent a lot of time around little boys. Perhaps his emphasis was intended to refer to girls showing off their dresses, but I’ve known plenty of little girls who won’t wear dresses. He asks, “Why are Eugenie and Serena wearing the outfits in the first place? Are they not intentionally demonstrating their feminine beauty to the world?” I would counter that they are wearing those outfits because that is the standard for their sport, although there is some variation within the WTA. Women in the WNBA aren’t wearing little skirts and being asked to twirl for the cameras. Personally, I think Eugenie responded graciously to an idiotic request. I dare someone to ask a UFC fighter to twirl for her fans!

Both the original interview and the blog post serve to illustrate a problem we have created with gender issues in this country. Apparel and behavior are often linked to gender in ways that are inconsistent and nonsensical. When children (or even adults) measure themselves by this arbitrary standard, they may feel there is something lacking and therefore believe they are in the wrong body. I’m not suggesting little boys should be allowed to wear dresses, but we do need to take a careful look at what our standards for femininity and masculinity are and where they come from.

There are a few references to apparel in Scripture. Perhaps most familiar is Peter’s appeal to wives in 1 Peter 3:3-4, “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (ESV; see also 1 Timothy 2:9-10). Alongside that is God’s statement to Samuel “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7b). Jesus had some pretty harsh words to say about the Pharisees concerns for appearance: “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long… Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:5, 27).

God is far more concerned with the state of our hearts than the style of our clothes. Some of the most beautiful people are those who are outwardly marred or crippled, but their love of God shines through. Jesus Himself “had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2).

I’ve searched on multiple occasions for Scriptural instructions that apply specifically to women aside from those related to spouse or children, and the Bible just doesn’t say much. The Proverbs 31 description is about the extent of it, and there is very little there that could not also be applied to men. Conducting business and the affairs of the household with diligence and integrity are the duties of every person. Once again verse 30 makes it a matter of the heart: “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Certainly there are plenty of points where debate could be raised, such as women teaching in the church (1 Timothy 2:12) or hair length for men and women (1 Corinthians 11:14-15), but those are a topic for some other blog.

I come to a couple conclusions: 1) Both men and women want to be recognized primarily for their accomplishments, not their apparel; for their deportment, not their dress. 2) God honors those whose hearts seek after Him regardless of their outward circumstances. God found David to be “a man after His own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). We get into dangerous territory when we create our own standards that have nothing to do with God’s law— “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:8-9).

Perhaps if we truly chase after God’s heart, we can learn to let go of all the secondary issues and fulfill Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:9-10: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” What better way is there to honor someone than by recognizing the desire of their heart above all else?

--Also check out my friend Rebecca Chasteen’s blog post on a similar topic: https://thesteadyblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/and-then-you-remember-shes-not-you-and-youre-not-dying-on-that-hill/