Contentment Must Be Learned

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

Contentment is not a natural tendency of man, it must be learned. Covetousness, discontent, and murmuring are as natural to man as weeds and thorns in a garden. You don’t have to plant weeds, they grow naturally because they are of the earth. But if you want wheat, you have to work at it by preparing the soil, planting the seed, and cultivating the crop. If you want specific flowers in a certain place, then there must be a garden with a gardener’s care. 

Contentment is like that! It must be cultivated because it will not grow naturally. The apostle Paul said, “I have learned…to be content.” It implies that, at one time, he didn’t know how to be content. There is little doubt in my mind that it cost him many pains and sorrows to learn the mystery of that great truth. But when he finally laid hold of it, he could say, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” [Philippians 4:11]. By the way, when he wrote those words, Paul was locked up in Nero’s prison in Rome.

Learning to be content does not come effortlessly—and without some pain and sorrow along the way. It is not something that you will acquire instantaneously, but rather gradually. Christ followers know that from experience. 

So there is a great challenge before us. Let’s lay aside covetousness, and silence the murmuring, as natural as they are, and be a good student in the School of Contentment.

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Timothy 6:6