Contentment: Why the World Can't Find It

This month we’re considering contentment - what it is, what it looks like, how to get it, and asking if it can last. So the first thing we ask is:

How do people typically look for contentment?

The vast majority of people, Christians included, seek contentment through a change in our circumstances. That makes sense: If you aren’t happy with something… change it!

And godly contentment doesn’t compel us to just sit in the gutter accepting bad things:

Contentment, “is not opposed. To all lawfull seeking out for help into another condition, or simply endeavouring to be delivered out of the present afflictions by the use of lawful means.”
Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Contentment isn’t asceticism, where we treat ourselves harshly for a spiritual payout. We may absolutely seek change. It was Jesus (the most contented person ever) who, when he warned his flock about coming persecution in Matt 24, didn’t say “Grin and bear it.” No, he said:

…then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
Matt 24:16

God doesn’t want you to needlessly suffer.
But, at the same time, he doesn’t want you to put your stock in your circumstances.

I’m sure there’s been a time in your life when you earnestly desired something; it filled your thoughts and your dreams; you could hardly think of anything else… and you got it. Are you fully satisfied today? Our capacity to desire is endless. So that thing, that outcome you’re desiring today… why do you believe this one will satisfy? If our great desires of the past… fulfilled… didn’t satisfy… what’s different this time?

Not to mention: if our circumstances can change (for the better)… they can change again (for the worse).

Why can’t a change of circumstances make us content? Because…

By its very nature, desire is not a thing that can be quenched.
By its very nature, desire is not a thing that can be satisfied.

Because peace, and contentment, and happiness do not come from outside us. Your circumstances simply can’t give you that. That is not a power they have.

And, what might be the final proof, that contentment can’t be a product of our circumstances: I’m sure, at one point or another, you have tried to please someone who simply will not be pleased. It’s not their circumstance. It’s their attitude. They refuse to be content. And here’s the hard truth: We’re not different. The same is true of us. Our’s might not be as extreme, but we’re only different in mater of degree, not in kind.

We need contentment within.
We need to become a contented kind of people.

And that’s the aim of this short series of contentment: Christianity uniquely offers the world a religion of inner transformation.