Choose Contentment

Series: October

Philippians 4:10-14 MSG; Galatians 2:11- NCV Galatians 2:11-13 NLT

Choosing contentment on the outside doesn’t seem like it would be a difficult task, but often there is more to the story.

After all, when it’s a choice it seems you would just decide to make decisions that would produce a result of peace and harmony.

In Philippians 4:10-14 we are told, “I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you’re again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don’t mean that your help didn’t mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.”

I don’t know about you, but when I read that scripture through a new lens it really makes me want to be more content.

It also shocks me that the Apostle Paul was able to write about contentment.

The life of early believers was not easy in comparison to ours. For example, Paul confronted Peter. We read in Galatians 2:11-13, “When Peter came to Antioch, I challenged him to his face, because he was wrong. Peter ate with the non-Jewish people until some Jewish people sent from James came to Antioch. When they arrived, Peter stopped eating with those who weren’t Jewish, and he separated himself from them. He was afraid of the Jews. So Peter was a hypocrite, as were the other Jewish believers who joined with him. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did.”

There was a time in my life (pre-Seminary) that I thought every difficulty the early believers faced came from the Romans. It never occurred to me they struggled with other believers.

I mistakenly thought scrabbles in the modern church were a new thing. Boy, was I wrong!

In all my years in church I don’t recall any sermons about the difficulties Paul had with Peter and vice versa.

Pre-seminary I read Galatians 2 several times but I was looking through another lens. I glossed over the hard part.

Soooo…back to contentment. Realistically life is life and whether it be life in the 1st Century or the 21st Century, men (women) will have issues. It will happen.

Choosing contentment often means speaking your mind, praying, and listening to what God would have you do.

The truth about Paul and Peter gives me hope for the church today. We speak our truth, pray, and listen to what God would have us do.

Then…we choose to be content with the result.

Deborah

acrazyjourney.com