Many years ago, just after I graduated from college, my parents gave me one of those inspirational pictures for Christmas that I hung on one of my office walls. I still have it today. The peaceful image is of a golden sunset, silhouetted by a man in a kayak, rowing across a calm glassy lake. The picture is titled “Contentment”, and the caption reads, “When you can look at the past with pride and the future with hope, you can live comfortably with today”. Yeah, right! Easier said than done!
What is contentment? More importantly, why is contentment so hard for us to grasp in our culture today? Here’s what the apostle Paul said about it. In Philippians 4:11-13, he says, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. 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. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” As I read through this verse, I see that Paul understood that we have no real control over the past or the future. The only period of time that we can physically live within, exist within, is the present. And our present situations of life can only be filled with peace through a complete surrender to God.
Basically, for Paul, it came down to a very simple concept: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” He reaffirms this in his first letter to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6:6-8, Paul again links the secret of contentment to God. “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” He then goes on to show us that our physical possessions have nothing to do with contentment. “For we brought nothing into the world, and we take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” Now, how many of us are content with those basic necessities of life?
Dale Carnagie once said that we should live life in “Day Tight Compartments”. He compares the past and present to the “air tight” doors of a ship that keep water from spreading in case of a sudden breach in the hull. He urges us to live each day in such a way that both the doors to the past and future remain shut and “day tight”. I believe that this is the essence of what the Paul was trying to get across in these verses. Paul had once lived life only for himself and knew of the dangers of being controlled by possessions. He had experienced life with much, and experienced life with nothing, and I believe that he is urging us to find a healthy medium between the two. Even if we are blessed with much, we can always want more, or convince ourselves that we need more. True contentment comes when we learn to accept the blessings that God has given us from one day to the next.
Paul says in Philippians 3:13-14 that he is, “forgetting what lies behind”. This is hard for me to grasp because I am a rather nostalgic person by nature. One of the last things I tend to do is “forget what lies behind.” I love reveling in a memory to the point that I’m transformed back in time. I can hear the sounds and voices. See the faces. So, what is Paul he getting at?
Can't our past bring forth good memories and enhance our contentment for today? Or can positive memories from our past cause us problems or conflict, because they create a false expectation of what things “should” be like? Do we put too much emphasis on what has been, and not allow God to have control of our here and now and transform us in the present? Do we not only put the bad behind us, but to some extent, the good as well?
Now this doesn’t mean that we don’t hold great memories of the past, pictures, video, etc… But as we live in the present and create the ever changing reality that soon becomes our past, we don’t try and recreate the past by what used to be, or who you used to be. God longs to transform is in the here and now. God cannot, and does not transform our yesterday. While He is in control of our tomorrow, the last thing He wants us to do is absorb ourselves in worry of tomorrow. True contentment comes when we learn to live within the reality of today and embrace the fact that this is the only reality over which we have control.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
"Would you like fries with that?" - God
Imagine for a moment, that you pull into your favorite fast food restaurant and order your favorite fast food meal. Your stomach growls with anticipation and hunger as you decide that you might just have to pull into a parking spot and have dinner in the car. Strangely, the cashier asks you to pull forward and tells you that she will bring your meal out to you in about 10 minutes. “Ten minutes!?”, you think to yourself with irritation. Isn't this supposed to be “fast” food? Reluctantly, you pull over, turn the car off and wait. Exactly 10 minutes later, you’re still waiting and hungrier than ever. Finally, 15 minutes later, your food arrives. Famished, you rip open the bag only to discover not the Quarter Pounder with cheese and large fries that you ordered, but a large chicken Caesar salad! The thought of storming into the restaurant and demanding satisfaction crosses your mind, but considering you are close to starvation at this point, you decide to accept what you have and dine. You take a deep breath, eat your "healthy" salad, and dream about how good that Quarter Pounder would have tasted! You finish eating, sit back, start the car and head for home for a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
After the drive home, you realize something. You feel surprisingly good. In fact, you have more energy than you have had in days! The anger from your 15-minute wait seems to be gone and you realize that if you had been served that double cheeseburger in five minutes, and eaten it in two, at this moment you would be eating Rolaids like candy.
We live in a “fast food” culture. Everything that we want, we want NOW. We microwave our meals as well as our relationships. The faster the better and anything that we have to wait for, is just not worth it. In fact, we have grown to believe that good things DON’T come to those who wait, but to those who can intimidate others to get what they want immediately. Is it any wonder that our relationship with God reflects how we view our life in America?
Our prayer life is much like the above scenario, despite how ridiculous it may sound. Answers to prayer typically do not come quickly and they are usually not what we expect. How many times have you prayed about something and expected to hear an answer right at that very moment? We tend to look at God as the cashier behind the counter. “OK, God. I’ll have THIS, THAT, but not too much of THAT, and while your at it, through in some of THIS.” We wait. We listen. And usually, we hear nothing. Automatically we assume that God isn't listening, or we question if He is really there at all. Waiting on God is not something that comes easy for us as Westerners. We become discouraged and our faith becomes weak. But as the profit Isaiah said, “Blessed are all who wait for him!”. Even in dark times, He hears our cries. Jonah knew this well as he cried out, “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help and you listened to my cry.”
There are two things that you can be assured of: God always hears ALL of our prayers and He always answers our prayers according to His will. In 1 John 5:14, it says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.” Notice that this is not an unconditional guarantee because our prayers must be within the will of God.
We see examples of this throughout the Psalms. David prays, waits and seeks God’s will. He goes into great detail to describe his pain and anguish while approaching God. I believe that this shows that David spent a significant amount of time waiting for God. Not only did he wait, but because of his suffering, more than likely, David’s prayers were not answered the way in which he would have liked. Above all, we are assured that David knew that his prayers were being heard: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.” David asked, he waited, he heard from God and He accepted God’s will as the best thing for him. He may have wanted the double cheeseburger, but God gave him the salad instead. And David not only “ate the salad”, but rejoiced and praised his Lord for hearing and answering his prayer.
After the drive home, you realize something. You feel surprisingly good. In fact, you have more energy than you have had in days! The anger from your 15-minute wait seems to be gone and you realize that if you had been served that double cheeseburger in five minutes, and eaten it in two, at this moment you would be eating Rolaids like candy.
We live in a “fast food” culture. Everything that we want, we want NOW. We microwave our meals as well as our relationships. The faster the better and anything that we have to wait for, is just not worth it. In fact, we have grown to believe that good things DON’T come to those who wait, but to those who can intimidate others to get what they want immediately. Is it any wonder that our relationship with God reflects how we view our life in America?
Our prayer life is much like the above scenario, despite how ridiculous it may sound. Answers to prayer typically do not come quickly and they are usually not what we expect. How many times have you prayed about something and expected to hear an answer right at that very moment? We tend to look at God as the cashier behind the counter. “OK, God. I’ll have THIS, THAT, but not too much of THAT, and while your at it, through in some of THIS.” We wait. We listen. And usually, we hear nothing. Automatically we assume that God isn't listening, or we question if He is really there at all. Waiting on God is not something that comes easy for us as Westerners. We become discouraged and our faith becomes weak. But as the profit Isaiah said, “Blessed are all who wait for him!”. Even in dark times, He hears our cries. Jonah knew this well as he cried out, “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help and you listened to my cry.”
There are two things that you can be assured of: God always hears ALL of our prayers and He always answers our prayers according to His will. In 1 John 5:14, it says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.” Notice that this is not an unconditional guarantee because our prayers must be within the will of God.
We see examples of this throughout the Psalms. David prays, waits and seeks God’s will. He goes into great detail to describe his pain and anguish while approaching God. I believe that this shows that David spent a significant amount of time waiting for God. Not only did he wait, but because of his suffering, more than likely, David’s prayers were not answered the way in which he would have liked. Above all, we are assured that David knew that his prayers were being heard: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.” David asked, he waited, he heard from God and He accepted God’s will as the best thing for him. He may have wanted the double cheeseburger, but God gave him the salad instead. And David not only “ate the salad”, but rejoiced and praised his Lord for hearing and answering his prayer.
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