14 DECEMBER 2023

 

Contentment

“He has filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:53)

When I was about 4 years of age my parents bought me a brand new, shiny, large tricycle for Christmas. Concerned that my younger brother would feel left out, and to avoid any possible arguments, they bought him a beautiful, red, toy double decker bus for his truck collection.

Christmas morning came and guess what we fought over? Yes – the double decker bus!

Envy is resentment held against another person because they have something you don’t - envy is the absence of contentment.

Mary quotes Psalm 107:9 as she praises God for filling “the hungry with good things.” On the surface, you could think she is giving thanks to God for providing starving people with food, but Psalm 107 suggests otherwise because it states that God satisfies “the thirsty soul” and He fills the “hungry soul with what is good.”

Providing physically for the hungry is important, but Mary focuses our attention on an even greater truth – God provides the spiritual needs of thirsty and hungry souls, and with that comes contentment, even in the worst of circumstances.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Christian, provides a challenging perspective on contentment:

“It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don’t claw at your insides. If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear… envy devours us most of all.”

Wanting what others have, resenting them for what they do have, and constantly wishing you had more will never bring you contentment.

But the soul that is content in God also finds contentment in all things, because He fills it “with good things.”

May God fill our hearts and bring contentment to our lives this Christmas!

“Contentment is the by-product of simplicity.” What is filling your heart at this moment?