"...who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psalm 103:5)
Last Sunday, the newly-Renovated women of Real Life Church continued our study of Psalm 103. We looked at verse 5, and discussed the following thoughts on contentment:
- Attempting to satisfy our longings in anything other than God robs us of the lasting joy He gives.
- Satan wants to keep us unhappy. He knows our discontentment can lead us away from God, into sin and destruction.
- Training our hearts to be grateful and our minds to believe God's truth will grow contentment in us.
I wrote "Lesson from a Mazda" four or five years ago, and I posted a version of it here last August. Sorry for the repeat. I hope it encourages the discouraged today!
Lesson from a Mazda
Joplin, Missouri, at the intersection of 7th Street and Duquesne. If you happened to be there one fall evening in 1994, I may owe you an apology. To anyone at that stoplight: I’m sorry. There, first in line in the turn lane, I was learning to drive a standard transmission.
My then-boyfriend Andy set out to teach me in his brown 1988 Mazda 626. And he would have made a fine instructor, had his pupil not been clutch-challenged. Andy tried in vain to make me hear the sound of the gears.
“Okay, listen for the catch. Hear that? Shift now. Hear it? Now!” I only heard an engine roar and die.
The green light clicked yellow, then red, and we waited for our next turn. “This time, try to feel the gears in the stick.” I tried. I felt nothing. Killed the engine again—another red light.
What began as comical—teasing each other and laughing at my incompetence—soon “downshifted” into a panicked argument.
“Listen for the gears!”
“I am!”
“Now!”
“Your car is so stupid!”
Five red lights and twice as many angry honks later, we traded places and finally turned left.
Some lessons are hard to learn.
Fast-forward a dozen years. Andy and I are married now, with three kids and two automatic transmissions. I never learned how to drive a standard, but I am currently in the middle of another lesson—one that’s even more trying than transmissions. I am learning contentment.
To be content means to have a deep-down satisfaction. An ease of mind, a peace within that cheerfully says, “I don’t want anything more than what I have.” Contentment lets you sigh happily and laugh heartily and sleep soundly. Contentment is rest and fulfillment and joy.
But as valuable as contentment may be, it's still hard to attain. A few years back, when the only cheery thing in life was my Prozac, I came to a realization: I was empty. Outwardly I had it all--a faithful husband, precious children, and friends who loved me more than I deserved. But happiness still eluded me. I was like a leaky balloon--impossible to fill. Empty.
I wasn't the only one chasing fulfillment. "I feel like a hamster on a wheel," a friend once confided. "I run round and round, getting nowhere, wishing for something outside the cage." I know stay-at-home moms who are unhappy staying at home, working moms dissatisfied with work, wives who are unhappily married, and single women who are unhappily unmarried. The common denominator among us all? Discontentment. "I'd be happy if ________," we tell ourselves, but we find nothing to adequately fill in that blank.
In the Book of Philippians, Paul claims that he has “learned the secret of being content in any and every situation”. Rich or poor, healthy or sick, good times or bad, Paul says he’s found it. At my lowest point a few years ago, I began to pray that God would reveal this secret to me, too. That He would teach me the lesson of contentment, completely--and preferably, quickly.
What a ridiculous prayer. Perhaps I should've asked God to just make me content. Poof! All better; now I'm happy. But learning contentment was a hard process, and slow. God went to work on virtually every area of my life--my relationships, my attitudes, my addictions, even my checkbook. Much of the contentment I've learned has come through the Book of Philippians. Who knew such a little letter could teach so much?
I haven't learned all there is to know. Far from it. My journey toward contentment is a process, trial and error, two steps forward and falling back again. There are no simple how-tos: Ten Easy Steps to a More Content You. Contentment isn't a wish to be granted overnight. It's a lesson to learn slowly, sometimes painfully, through much gratitude and scripture meditation.
Contentment isn't easy. It's even more complicated than standard transmissions. I gave up on that Mazda, but I won't quit on this. With God as my teacher and Philippians as my textbook, I'm determined to say with Paul, "Contentment? I know the secret. Lesson learned!"
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