Christian Contentment in a Consumer World

There's an old story that goes something like this:

A mother and her son were walking through the woods one day when a storm fell upon them.  Within minutes the two were being bombarded by blasting wind and pelting rain within a tempest.  Suddenly a funnel cloud began swirling around them.  The mother clung to a tree while her son was clinging to her.  The woman was holding to the tree so tightly that she barely noticed when her son was swept away by the tornado.  She began to cry out to God, saying in a loud voice, "Oh Lord, please bring me back my son!  If You bring Him back I'll never ask for anything and I'll worship you for the rest of my life!  Please Lord! Please."  Immediately her son fell to the ground as the storm subsided.  He was unharmed as the mother ran to him to comfort him.  She kissed her son's face and hugged him tightly.  Abruptly, she withdrew from her son and looked him over before looking back up to the sky and said, "He had a hat, Lord. Could we get that too?"

In a world that bases satisfaction on how much and how many, the biblical model of contentment seems even more relevant to understand and apply today.  Our understandings of contentment are so influenced by the consumer culture we liv in, that is inundated with planned-obsolescence and short-lived shelf life.  For Christians, though, God is the ultimate source of our satisfaction and contentment.  Once we claim this, it will not only change how we deal with consumerism, but also how we will deal with our own state of contentment.

God is the source of our contentment.  Because our contentment is based on an eternal and sovereign Lord, our contentment is always secure.  This flies in the face of the temporal contentment of the World.  Instead, we find our pleasure, our satisfaction, and our contentment in being in relationship with the Holy Lord.  Claiming this contentment requires that we draw closer to the Lord in praise and worship.  Remembering that we rely on a Holy Lord in all thankfulness is the essence of contentment.

While there are many Scripture passages that speak about contentment (Psa. 16:2; Pro. 15:15, 19:23; Job 1:21; Matt. 6:25-34; 1 Tim. 6:6; Heb. 13:5).  But the most important Scripture about contentment is Paul's exhortation in Philippians 4:11-13.  The point Paul makes, and that we should agree with, is that because God is the source of our contentment we should always be content in any circumstance void of abundance or poverty.  Let us then be content and thankful, praising God for His provision and grace!