I used to think of contentment as part of a to-do list, honestly. I knew it was in the Bible, so I thought it should characterize my life. Brush my teeth: check. Read my Bible: check. Be content: check.
And in spite of that desire to follow the rules, deep down, I really struggled with contentment. I didn’t like where I was. I was jealous, envious, and prideful.
In Lies Women Believe, Nancy Leigh DeMoss devotes an entire chapter fighting this lie: If I am not content with my present circumstances, I am not likely to be happy in any other set of circumstances.
I was totally living that lie. I kept thinking, “If only I was ______, then I’d be happy…”
I saw friends getting married and I was single. I saw friends getting jobs and I was in school. I saw friends living in houses with people I wanted to live in houses with. Basically, I looked around at others’ lives and I wanted it for my own.
In Lies Women Believe, there’s a story about a woman named Elizabeth Prentiss who was leaving New York City to move to Chicago with her husband in the late 1800s. She was frail in her health in her early fifties and her husband was getting a new job. In her time, this was especially challenging. Following her wrestling with God over all the terrible circumstances, she writes:
We want to know no will but God’s in this question… The experience of the past winter would impress upon me the fact that place and position have nothing to do with happiness; that we can be wretched in a palace, radiant in a dungeon… perhaps this heartbreaking is exactly what we need to remind us… that we are pilgrims and strangers on the earth.
We are pilgrims to this earth! Strangers! This is not our home.
And since I’m not fully home yet, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be radiant in a dungeon than wretched in a temporary palace. In spite of our circumstances, we have the freedom to embrace the fact that we are where we are because God has placed us there. In spite of our circumstances, we can have joy in the gospel. In Jesus. We can rest in His grace and His love.
We can have hope in so much more than our circumstances. And beyond that, circumstances change! So being anchored in Jesus is more valuable and long-lasting than being anchored in our circumstances.
Is there something in your life that you think “I’ll only be happy when I _____”? And if so, are there ways you can embrace gifts God’s given you now, even before you reach that “____”?
Life doesn’t start in the future. Life doesn’t start in other circumstances. Life started with Jesus, and the moment you trusted in Him. Embrace where you are now – in the hard and in the good!
You can be wretched in a palace, or radiant in a dungeon.