What is the One Secret That Leads to Contentment No Matter the Circumstance?

Have you noticed it?  It’s becoming an epidemic.   Everybody seems so discontented these days.   Some folks point to one thing or another that bothers them.    But it goes so much beyond that.   No, it feels like the discontent sits in the air everywhere, stirring everybody up, usually not in a good way. 

Now, this could be South Florida in August.  That tropical heat and humidity makes everyone a bit crankier this time of year.   And discontent doesn’t need to be a bad thing.   Discontent motivates you to change, to make yourself, to make the world better.

But what about when discontent goes deeper than that?  What about when discontent feels like this description the writer Joshua Charles gave.  Charles wrote.  “We are a people of full bellies and empty hearts.”   What happens, when you feel a bit like that?  When you look at your life, and you think, I should be more content, but I’m not.  That deeper discontent, it’s tough.  It’s what you feel, when no matter what you do or don’t do, something significant always feels missing.   So yes, you have a great day, a day when everything seems to fit, when life feels full, incredibly full even.    But then you wake up the next morning, and the fullness has faded away.    And you are left wondering.  Does this fullness I seek, does it even exist? 

But what if it does exist?  What if you can feel a deep sense of fullness, even on your worst days. What if you could feel contentment, deep contentment, that did not waver no matter how good things or hard your life became?   Is such a thing possible?   In these words from St. Paul, God tells you.  Yes it is.  In these words, God points the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 

Philippians 4:10-13

How can you find contentment for your life, no matter how good or bad your life is?  How can you live with a deep sense of well-being, even when things aren’t going well at all?   Can that happen?  In Paul’s words, God tells you it can.   It happens when you realize where the true source of contentment, of satisfaction lies.  And when you discover that source, you’ll realize that this source never wavers, no matter how good or bad the conditions of your life become.   That’s how Paul can say these stunning words, written from a death row prison cell, no less.   Paul can say.   I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  What is Paul’s secret?

Before we can go there, you first have to see, why it’s a secret to begin with.   Why do people have such difficulty discovering what Paul has?   People have difficulty because they are looking for contentment in all the wrong places.   They are looking at what they see and thinking.  That must be where contentment lies.

What do I mean?   Well, they look at success or a happy marriage or family, or some form of pleasure or even serving others, and they think.   If I get that, then I’ll be happy.  I’ll be content. And of course, they think that, because all of those things do give you contentment, for a bit.   But the contentment never really lasts.  Whatever the thing is that you shoot for, that you aspire towards for contentment, in the end disappoints.   It doesn’t disappoint because it’s bad.  It disappoints because whatever that thing is, it was never designed to give you the contentment you seek. 

The poet Wallace Stevens put it well when he said.  Even in contentment, I feel the need of some imperishable bliss.   Do you get what Stevens was saying?  Even when you’re happy, you still sense you are missing something.   It may be simply the fact that you know that this happiness you feel won’t last, that it will fade away.  So even as you enjoy it, you’re already anticipating the pain of the loss.   Or it may be as good as that moment is, you sense, it’s just not good enough. 

But if all these things that you see, as good as they are, can never give you what you seek, why do you look to them for that?   You look to them because they arouse that desire.  They just can’t fulfill it.   They arouse it because each of them gives a little glimpse of what truly brings contentment.   But the contentment you seek always lies beyond, behind these things, so to speak.    So, what happens when what your aspire to for contentment fails you?  You’ll typically react in one of four ways.  

First, when the disappointment happens, you could blame the things.    You think.  I just need more success or more wealth.   I simply need a better plan or a better job.  My spouse needs to get better or maybe, I need a completely different one.   If those things change, then the contentment I seek will come.   So, you keep looking, chasing a dream that always seems just a bit further away.   You’re like that poor schmuck in the desert always running to the next mirage, thinking that the oasis lies there.  Then when you get there and see it’s nothing but sand, you don’t stop.  You just look for the next mirage.   And in your search, you usually leave a lot of wreckage behind in your life and the lives of others.

Now if you don’t blame the things, you may become one of those folks that blame yourself.  You think, the reason you don’t find contentment is simply that something must be wrong with you.    And yes, you are right.  Something is wrong with you, because guess what, something is wrong with everybody.   That’s not the problem, though. 

Have you even seen a preview for a movie and thought that film looks awesome! Then you went and saw it and realized that you had already seen the best parts, in the preview.   That’s the life of everyone you know.   Everyone you see is always showing you their highlight reel.   You are never seeing the behind the scenes.    And today, you don’t even need to see the person to see that highlight reel.   All you have to do is go to Facebook or more accurately, Fakebook to see it.  

Haven’t you done it?  Let’s say. You go to the beach with your family.  On the way, the kids are fighting in the back seat.   And you’re bickering with your spouse about how long they took to get ready or because they forgot to bring something.  Then you get there.  You scramble to find a place.  One of the kids gets sunburned. The other throws a fit over what you brought for lunch.  But then at the end of the day, everybody poses with big smiles, and you take a shot and post it on Facebook.  Awesome day with the family at the beach!

So, if you believe others’ highlight reel or fakebook page, then you can go through life, thinking it must be me.  Maybe you go to therapy to figure that out.  And sure, therapy could help you address some of the problems in your life.  But you know what therapy can’t do.   It can’t bring you contentment.   It won’t give you that imperishable bless, that the poet Stevens wrote about.   

Now if folks stop blaming the things or themselves, they then often blame the universe.  Their thinking goes like this.  None of what I’ve looked to for contentment brings it.   Therefore, this contentment must not exist.  This is as good as it’s going to get.   And they simply let the desire die.   Now, some take this so far, they lose even the desire to live.   But most still live their life.  They just do so with a sense of resignation.   They enjoy life as much as they can, sure, but inside something has died or at least almost died.   It’s still there, that desire. It’s just been pressed down, denied even.  But if they’re honest, deep inside, they still feel a quiet despair, a grief that their life will never hold the meaning or joy they yearned for it to have.  But they are wrong.   Just because you cannot find something, doesn’t mean it’s not there.   All it means is that you’re looking in all the wrong places.      

As C.S. Lewis put it.   Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exist.   A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food.  A duckling wants to swim; there is such a thing as water.  People feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex.  If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  (From Mere Christianity)   

What does Lewis mean?  Lewis is saying contentment exists, and you can even get hints at it in what you see.  But what you are looking for ultimately lies behind those things.   It lies in a relationship beyond this world, beyond what you can see.   That is the secret that Paul has learned.   And note how Paul says it.   He didn’t discover it.  He learned it.  In his case, religion had been the desire that never brought contentment.  But only when he encountered Jesus, someone even beyond religion, did Paul get a clue.

And as he more and more encountered Jesus, he learned not only could this ultimate contentment be found but far more.  He learned that this relationship with Jesus could bring contentment no matter what circumstances he faced.   Because Jesus’ presence didn’t depend on those circumstances.   It transcended them.  It went beyond them.  And the more he made that relationship his ultimate focus, the deeper and more unwavering his contentment grew. 

Now what does Jesus bring you that creates such contentment.  I can only touch upon that here today.  But basically, it comes down to this.  When you know how much you are ultimately loved and valued, how far in Jesus God went to bring you to your true home, that love fills you up.   It fills you up as nothing else can.  

Have you been looking for contentment in all sorts of places, and yet something always seems to be missing?   You are right.  Something is.  Here is the secret.   When you look for contentment in something beyond Jesus, the problem is not that you want too much.  The problem is you want too little.    But when you open yourself to this love, His love that loves you no matter what, then you have opened the door that leads you into the very contentment you seek.   If you doubt that is true, then simply test it.   Ask Jesus to show you his love, and then see what happens.   The door to contentment is open before you.   All you have to do is go through.  Let us pray.