"For I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances..."

One of my favorite passages both for its promise of the reward of contentment and the descriptiveness of the situations in which I can find contentment is this passage in Phillipians 4.

I have learned that at the root of my stress and anxiety is often discontent. When you find yourself sharing your latest frustration with a co-worker or friend what are you really doing? What's really going on in my life that like a pressure cooker I need to bleed off steam when I get riled up?

Upon analyzing this it seems clear to me that I am discontent with my life. I do NOT want to be where I am right this minute. Instead, I want my relationship with God not to bring me contentment "in any and every circumstance" but rather to bring me ONLY those circumstances in which I am always content.

I've diminished God's plan for my life by rejecting and rebelling against it because it's too inconvenient, fraught with uncertainty and often beyond my ability to control the outcome. Is this faith? I think perhaps it's a glaring exposure of the thin veneer my faith actually is.

But I am encouraged when I'm reminded the passage starts with "For I have learned to be..." because it is clear that contentment....the REALITY of deep faith...is not something I am born with. It is also not something which came to me as a free gift with the holy spirit when I first believed. Instead, contentment is learned. It is the proof of putting our trust in God and finding he is trustworthy.

So every time I allow myself to consciously continue in my discontent I am delaying the lesson to be learned. I'm making it harder to be content and also requiring I continue to face the same dilemma again in the future in order for me to learn from it.

"I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need."

What an acknowledgement of the reward of a life spent learning how to trust in the Lord. This did not come to Paul overnight and it won't come to me in capsule form either. What I must do on a daily basis is realize that when I feel worry, anxiety, stress, anger, and frustration I am being given a choice. It is up to me to recognize the emotions as an outward sign of a situation I can learn contentment in and trust in the Lord.

But can I do it? I seem to fail so consistently at this lesson.....

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."

Paul gives us the how at the very end, lest you should think Paul is superhuman and deceive yourself into thinking you aren't capable of learning this level of contentment. You can and you can't. With Christ's strength you can learn to trust the Lord with small and big things, to acknowledge his pre-eminence in both good things in your life and struggles. On my own, I cannot do it....but "through Christ".....

Ken Stampe