Contentment
“If you would be content, do what you ought, not what you please.” Anonymous
The Apostle Paul was not concerned with just getting whatever it was that might have pleased him. To the brethren in Philippi, he wrote, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” (Philippians 4:11–12). This contentment that he learned, without a doubt, aided him in pressing forward for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ.
The apostle’s converted life was full of being abased and abounding. The interesting thing about his contentment, though, is that a very great deal of his time was spent in great difficulty. He was scourged on five different occasions, beaten with rods three times, stoned, shipwrecked three times, and in journeyings often. He was in danger often, in water, of robbers, of his own countrymen, of heathen, in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea and among false brethren.
How could Paul have been content in the face of so much that was not physically or mentally pleasing? We just read that he both learned and was instructed in being content. The solution was for him and is for us, a spiritual one. Paul, as with each of us, had Christ as an example to look to. “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:8–9). Christ knew what obedience was, but to be the perfect sacrifice for mankind He had to humanly experience obedience unto death. From this, we learn that one of the objects of affliction is to lead us to obey God completely. It is part of the perfecting process.
Finding contentment in either need or plenty goes deep. Paul said, in Philippians 4:12, that he was instructed in such. Instructed comes from the Greek mueo and means to initiate or by implication, to teach. Mueo is commonly used in relation to mysteries. Many do not comprehend the spiritual benefits of being temperate and thankful in plenty. Likewise, many do not comprehend the spiritual benefits of bearing difficulties without complaining and discontent. Understanding the mysteries that evade most of mankind, however, is attainable to those who desire it.
We learn contentment bit by bit the more fully we come to comprehend what is happening internally – in our heart – through our experiences. Of himself, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). The more we learn contentment, the more useful we’ll be to God and to each other.
There is great contentment in doing what we ought.
Marshall Stiver
