What I am
learning right now is how there is a contentment we can experience “in whatever situation,” and, “in any and every circumstance.”[1]
As I look at
the situations and circumstances we are facing in this present generation of
history, considering contentment in every one of them seems almost unthinkable,
if not impossible. However, this contentment is clearly what our heavenly
Father is working into the hearts of all his children because it is his “good pleasure”[2] that
we could know the same contentment as he has within himself.
The thing
that began to draw my attention this morning is that many people not only struggle
to know the secret of contentment in all the situations and circumstances they
are facing in the present time, but are also restricted in their experience of
contentment by traumatizing situations and circumstances from the past. If they
are to know contentment in its fullest sense, as something they feel within the
totality of their being, they also need to know it in their unresolved traumatic
experiences.
What so many
of us face is that our contentment in present situations and circumstances is
hindered because we have not learned contentment in past situations and
circumstances. This means that, not only are there situations and circumstances
in which we do not know contentment, but these past traumas have caused us to
compartmentalize our souls, which means that our feeling of contentment has
never entered into large segments of our inner selves. What we have left is a
small segment of ourselves struggling to feel content in all the present
situations and circumstances we are facing. And (grand crescendo playing to the
obvious), it is not working!
To feel
contentment the way Paul meant it (meaning that our whole inner being feels
content in every situation and circumstance we face), we must be just as
willing to learn this in whatever we have blocked out from the past, as much as
in whatever we are facing in the present.
In other
words, contentment involves our whole inner being feeling at peace in our whole
world of experiences.[3] If
there are parts of our souls that don’t experience contentment because we have
never come to know God in those places,
or we can’t feel contentment in certain kinds of situations and circumstances,
we will be constantly thwarted in any desires for a contented soul.
Consider what
Jesus says he will do to teach us contentment:
Come to me, all who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”[4]
Jesus’
promise to give us rest for our souls means that our rest, including
contentment in all situations and circumstances, is intended to touch our
souls, meaning our whole inner beings. So, how do we get the contentment that
invades our souls?
The main
answer is in Jesus’ promise, “I will give
you rest.” This is another way of promising us that when we pray in the
Spirit, instead of giving way to anxiety in the sark, God’s peace guards our
hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.[5]
That peace is another aspect of contentment. Jesus will give us rest for our
souls, and peace, and contentment. It comes from him. Ask for it.
But then
there is the part where we work out our salvation with fear and trembling
because of what God is working into us both to will and to work for his good
pleasure.[6]
What do we do in response to what God is doing? “Come to me,” means that we come in response to Jesus’ invitation. “Take my yoke upon you, and
learn from me,” means that we willingly submit to Christ our teacher
so that we can learn from him.[7]
When we do our part in response to his part, we “find rest for your souls.”
As we
consider Paul’s teaching and example about contentment, it becomes quite clear
that asking God for contentment in every part of our souls, and in every
situation and circumstance of past, present, and future, is most assuredly
according to his good, acceptable, and perfect will.[8] Not
only that, but Paul led us to this lesson on contentment through a beautiful
and gracious invitation to the kind of prayer that will bring it about. He taught
us:
“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to
God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”[9]
Here is how
to apply Paul’s lesson on prayer with his lesson on contentment:
- Turn from addressing
yourself, handling the inner and outer circumstances through the anxiety
of the sark (stop looking inward for the means of handling things).
- Turn to God in
prayer (start looking upward to God as our means of handling things),
addressing him about everything.
- Express yourself
to God in supplication, telling him all that is on your heart about the
keenly felt needs of both the present and the past (past things that are
still with us are present things after all).
- Weave
thanksgiving through all you express to God, especially in direct relation
to things that apply to whatever circumstances from past and present you
are bringing to him (ie: thankfulness that there is a throne of mercy we
can come to in fearless prayer, knowing we will receive the grace that
will help us in our time of need; etc).
- Present to God
the specific, positive, requests that apply to whatever you face now, and
whatever you are still facing from the past. No matter what things feel
like (as you expressed to God in supplication), identify the end result,
or the end experience, you know is according to the will of God (ie: the
completeness of joy his word speaks about; the healing for the
brokenhearted and binding up of wounds God promises; the rest for our
souls Jesus said he would give us if we come to him; etc)
My encouragement
to us all is that, instead of denying the true condition of our souls, or
dissociating from present situations and circumstances, bring whatever we are
going through to God so he can teach us contentment. He calls us to this
because his good pleasure wants us to experience it. He promises rest for our
souls because he wants us to know what that feels like. He shows us how to come
to him so we can experience his peace guarding our hearts and minds because he
wants his children to know what his peace feels like.
What we must
do is submit to God for the experience of peace, and rest, and contentment, and
then follow him through whatever messed up circumstances and situations of past
and present that need to learn the very things he is teaching. God is working
in his children such good things for us to will and to work for his good
pleasure; let us work these same things out with fear and trembling until we
can say that we have now learned the secret of contentment right where God is
teaching it to us for his glory and our good.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Philippians 4:11-12
[2]
Our theme of Philippians 2:12-13 that encourages us with the things God is working
into our lives because it is his good pleasure that we would experience them
with him.
[3]
Paul’s prayer for our “inner being” in Ephesians 3:14-21 shows that he wanted
to see the fullest experience of God’s reaching into the fullness of our inner
selves.
[4]
Matthew 11:28-30
[5]
Philippians 4:4-9
[6]
Philippians 2:12-13
[7]
This includes all that was given to the churches through the epistles in which
we see how Jesus does his ministry through the ministry and spiritual gifting
of his body, the church. My philosophy of ministry is, “Bringing the Soul
Condition of the people to the Soul Provision of Christ through the Soul Care
of the body of Christ.”
[8]
Romans 12:2
[9]
Philippians 4:6-7
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