1998-12-22 - Contentment

Ways to Generate Contentment, Part 5

Hebrews 13:7 Be content with such things as you have.

5. We ought to seek a better life, which is the chief end of life anyway.

God knows our needs, Matthew 6:32. God has at His disposal all things to meet our needs, Psalm 135:6,7 Knowing this we ought to take to heart the example in Scripture of the Israelites. God was pleased to meet their needs by sending them manna every morning and quail in the evening. He gave them water from the rock at Horeb. Yet they murmured anyway.

From every evidence of Scripture, God was pleased to meet their needs, but He seems to be displeased to have been asked to meet their fancies or carnal wants. Psalm 106:13-15 sums this up with a conclusion. "They quickly forgot His works, They did not wait for His counsel, and lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, And tempted God in the desert. So He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls."

When the Israelites should have been seeking a new land, they were reflecting about how good they used to have it in Egypt. The results of their complaining was that while God gave them their desires, He also gave them leanness into their souls.

They should have been seeking a better life, but they wanted their old life back and in this we are often like them. We should be seeking the better life, but we often become blinded by the trappings of this world. By grasping at the things that are here we lose sight of what the real end of this life is moving towards, namely heaven and glory.

The things of this earth are here for our use on our way to heaven. We are not to seek after them as ends in themselves. Our task is to seek and serve God, and then, in doing this, prepare ourselves for heaven. Matthew 6:33, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." There will be enough things here to sustain us on our journey to heaven and therefore we can and should be content with the provisions of God for us in this life as we wait for and seek after the better life in heaven.

Our attitude ought to be somewhat like the shepherd, who was asked by a traveller, what the weather would be like that day. The shepherd replied, "It will be what weather pleases me." The traveller asked him to explain what he meant and the shepherd said, "Sir, it shall be what weather pleases God; and what weather pleases God pleases me."

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." Charles D. Warner

Soli Deo Gloria,
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