Finding Contentment
I remember walking down the streets on Ntinda right after the Hardware world making my way towards Tuskys walking past those display manikins (that are so ridiculously well dressed in their fitting outfits) and I was hit by a feeling that I quickly came to realize was contentment. It was like a wave that just washed over me and filled me up. It was a great feeling truth be told, and that was probably the first time in my life I ever felt content (at least the first time I can remember)
I’d like to say that I knew the recipe back then… I didn’t. But thinking back to that day, I asked myself if it were possible for someone to be intentional about find contentment, and if so how?
Contentment is a really elusive thing in the world today, there is always a new social media post of someone celebrating a win (I’m not saying it’s a bad thing) but that’s when the “God When?” mentality kicks in. We compare our seeds to someone else’s tree and we think to ourselves that when we get to where that person is, I too will be happy and content but the fact is there is always someone with a better tree at the top of the hill and then you’re caught up in the endless cycle of thinking that happiness is in the next season.
The lie that is it greener on the other side or that there is happiness in the next things leads us to miss out on today and in the pursuit to find contentment in the next season we can make bad decisions and end up losing ourselves.
I’m learning that contentment isn’t something that you’re born with, but it is a decision that you make, contentment isn’t something you find on some quest, it’s something you practice. My job here is to turn you on to some of the things I have learned and am doing to exercise contentment in whatever season of my life and who better to teach us these things than Paul himself. In this article, I shall be focusing on Philippians 4:6–13. Paul says in verse 9 “Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me; everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
One of the key things I’ve come to learn about contentment is it’s about being content in a season not with a season. Paul says; “I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.” The keyword here is IN, being content IN a season not WITH it.
This is profound because it disrupts the way we have come to interpret contentment, we think it’s in the next season, the next relationship, or the next job and that’s just not true.
Being content in a season doesn’t change how you feel about your current situation you will still feel frustrated but this takes me back to what I said earlier about contentment is about practice. You can be content in whatever situation if you practice… it’s hard (I know I am trying really hard) and it will not feel normal, but the more we practice, the more it will feel normal and I like to believe that at some point contentment will come naturally to us; kind of like Paul in this chapter I mean he was in prison when he wrote about being content in every situation.
So, here are 2 things Paul mentions that I am practicing so I can be content in every season.
- Shifting my perspective.
Your contentment is in what you choose to focus on. Even in the worst situation, you have the power to choose your focus. Philippians 4:8 “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” this might be a hard pill to swallow but in whatever situation you’re in, there is something worthy of praise, look for it, and find it.
You can choose to focus on fear, frustration, anger or you can pivot your focus on what feeds your faith. Contentment isn’t a feeling; it’s a focus and it will take practice. If you focus on the negative stuff, the things that bring you down, that frustrate you, you miss out on an opportunity for contentment. If you can’t find what to focus on, focus on the Lord.
I am reminded of the story of Job a man who lost literally everything and, in his loss, he said “I came naked from my mother’s womb and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord”- Job 1:21 In all his pain, he chose to focus on the goodness of the lord and worship him. Worship can be key in helping you shift perspective or just be content, I know because, for a season of my life, worship music is all I listened to, and the things I focused on and obsessed about changed, all the regrets I had faded into the background.
2. Practicing being in the present and appreciating all seasons.
Being present is one of the biggest things that I struggle with, I am the kind of person who says things like ‘If I had done this instead of that I’d be in a different place right now, a better place’ But the thing is, contentment isn’t in the next season if we don’t cultivate it now and it is most certainly isn’t in the seasons that have passed.
Ecclesiastes 3 there is a time for everything, seasons come and they go; when you know that it is just a season, you can live through it. Sometimes we get stuck in a season in our minds and that just keeps holding you back. Discern the season for what it is and learn what needs to be learned.
Final thoughts — there is a fine line between contentment and complacency; being complacent is accepting your season as it is, settling for less than. Contentment, on the other hand, is acknowledging that you aren’t in the best season of your life, not downplaying your disappointment and know that you aren’t an authority over your life; Believing that you have a God who will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory through Christ Jesus.
