The Season of Contentment

The road I walk now in this journey of faith takes me through seasons that are closer to the end of all my earthly seasons than any time I have ever known.  It is a season of more self-awareness, a greater need to pay attention, and a heightened sense that God is present in every moment as well as in everything.  Most of my life I have lived in such a hurry to get somewhere other than the present moment and place that it would have been impossible to drink from the water provided in this later season even if it had offered.  I was simply too busy wanting other things to want the gifts of this season so close to the end of all earthly seasons.     

Like the many, we live with an eye on tomorrow which creates such loss and waste in our life.  More and more am I being drawn to those words from the Word in which the Apostle Paul said of himself, "I have learned to be content with whatever I have..."  (Philippians 4:11).  Life is diminished and sometimes destroyed by our inability to live inside a spirit of contentment.  Without contentment we are constantly looking ahead, distracted by what is around us, and vulnerable to a greed which seeks to take what has not been given.      

This lack of personal contentment is at the core of all that might be characterized as the sin in our life.  The names of our failures, the names of the problems of others at which we are quick to point a finger, and the names of the sharp shards of brokenness upon which we daily walk may give names to the sin within us, but they are only the symptoms of this loss of a contented core.  To lose sight of the contented core means we have lost sight of God and His commitment to provide for us according to our needs in all the different seasons He gives to us.