Contentment is Learned Not Instantaneously Acquired
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
Phil. 4:11-12
Contentment is satisfaction in God himself. We don’t care whether life is the way we want it as long as we have his presence, joy, and love. Nothing the world offers compares with the satisfaction we have in Christ. Contentment is finding our needs met in God’s love and our sufficiency fulfilled in God’s adequacy (Phil 4:11; 1 Tim. 6:6; Heb. 13:5). We are able to experience joy while being fulfilled with the necessities of life that the Lord has provided. Contentment is developed over time: its is not an instant virtue. Contentment is obtained through trusting Christ and a willingness to live without the world’s passing fashions. Contentment is obtained by trusting God’s will, submitting to his appointments (even if they are disappointments), and drawing our strength from Christ (Phil. 4:13).
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.
Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Reprint; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1964), 19.
HT: Redeemer Blogs