Pondering Contentment

I have been pondering contentment. As I look deeper into the meaning of contentment in scripture, I am faced with all the time I can waste questioning, whining, and controlling what belongs to God and God alone. "If we focus on what we can't have or what we don't have, we will miss what we do have (Mark Sterling)." With that said, I can clearly see how much of my life is a struggle between looking back and looking ahead when I don't like what I am presently looking at! This is obviously not a new concept. 

The Israelites looked back to bondage and slavery in Egypt with fondness and longing when they didn't want to trust God. How crazy is that! They begged God to send them back to the good old days of slavery! Solomon wrote the whole book of Ecclesiastes for people looking back or forward for "greener grass." He summed up the cure to all our "what ifs," "if onlys," and "woe is me's" in this phrase at the end of Ecclesiastes, "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." 

You see, God's Word is not complicated, our whole duty is just twofold: 1. Fear God. 2. Keep His commands. Soooo, why does it seem so hard to live in contentment? I think Peter lends some insight into the struggle to live content.  He had a pattern in the Gospels of being tripped up by three behaviors: 1. He questioned God's plan. 2. He whined about God's plan. 3. He tried to present an alternative plan. I am Peter. I usually try to work things my way exhaustively before I fall down in surrender. At the point of surrender, I will fear God and choose His way over my way. The past, present, and future belong to the Lord and He can be trusted to be good at being God because He is a good God!

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