Learning Contentment

As a parent, you know the frustration associated with Christmas morning. Your children tear open one gift to behold something they have desperately asked for, and before the wrapping has time to fall to the floor, they are already reaching for the next shiny package.

There’s something in all of us like that. We do acknowledge the blessings we have. We might even give God thanks for them, but somewhere along the way, we become discontented. Read 1 Timothy 6:6-10 to hear Paul’s instruction to his son in the faith, Timothy.

1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.7 For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.8 If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

What did Paul say were the two requirements for contentment (v. 8)?

Food and covering.

Do you have those two things? Have you eaten something today? Do you have a roof to sleep under tonight? Are you wearing something right now?  If you answered “yes” to these questions, are you content? Are you really content?

It is easy to become dissatisfied with the food and the covering we have. We complain about the way something tastes. We wish we had someone else’s house. Or maybe we just wish we had more of a certain item. Beware: “those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction” (v. 9). Isn’t it interesting that those who become dissatisfied with their food and covering might do something in their attempt to get something more, and in the end lose what they had in the first place? Ruin and destruction take the food and covering away due to an unwillingness to be contented.

Many people, in the middle of ruin and destruction due to acting upon sinful desires, would love to have that old food and covering they once had. Learn contentment. Today, thank God for your food and covering and for any other blessing with which God has graced you.