Thought for the Day 23/04/21 - COVID and contentment

 AUDIO

Oh boy.

This is a ticklish subject!

How CAN you be content during COVID?

You look at your social media feed and it is heaving full of comments that are anything but contented.

You listen to radio phone-in programmes and the airwaves are FULL of people who are ... what should we say (?), 'frustrated' with the rules that constrain them, the economic consequences that the lockdown has brought to them and the vitriol they vent freely is pretty fearful.

Contentment, you say? What IS this 'contentment' of which you speak?

Brace yourself, now.

Here comes the massively encouraging Verse for the Day:

(Here's Paul speaking ...)

"I know what it is to be in need, 

    and I know what it is to have plenty. 

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation,

    whether well fed or hungry, 

    whether living in plenty or in want."

                                  Philippians 4:12

The situation about which Paul is speaking

Paul is writing to a church he has seen spring into life as he preached the Gospel for the first time in Europe in a pagan and Emperor-worshipping city.

Paul didn't take money in this patronage culture (where money was given in return for unquestioning favours) from folks he couldn't totally trust to be heart and soul for the Gospel.

That's why he sometimes (but not always) worked himself to earn money for his living  alongside preaching the Gospel in places where it wasn't yet established.

But the Philippians were now established in Christ, and they had partnered with Paul in sending a gift to meet his needs ... which he thanks them for in the verses just before this.

Two useful things

Paul is sharing here with us two useful things that will help us in our COVID frustrations.

Firstly Paul tells us that when it comes to facing the frustration of privation he knows what he's talking about.

He establishes his right to speak before he does so.

Paul had been a prestigious and wealthy man of good family, but suffered the loss of ALL things for the sake of faithfulness and obedience to Christ.

But Paul's at pains to say 'it's not about the money', and then expands into the theme of Christian contentment.

That's the second thing, he tells us he's learned the secret of being content.

That's the trouble with us, though, isn't it?

We by default think the answer to lack of contentment is more things. Amazon has never been busier than at the height of COVID lockdown!

But we're still as disconented as we were before we clicked and paid, when the empty boxes get put out for the dustman.

The answer to the lack of contentment is not more things.

The answer to the lack of contentment is to find that rare jewel (as someone called it) of contentment.

It is really rare.

It doesn't come easy to humans ... as if most of us just haven't got it in us ... and that would be exactly Paul's point ...

The SECRET of being content

Paul doesn't just tell us he knows what he's talking about because HE's known some very hard times.

That in itself doesn't help me with mine.

Neither does he just tell us that he's learned the secret of dealing with this and finding contentment in the face of frustrastion and privation.

By itself, that wouldn't help me cope with COVID's hardships at all, either!

In the very next verse to the one we just looked at Paul tells us the secret of being contented ... this thing that we'd all love to do, to meet hardships and frustration with contentment.

Here's Paul giving away the secret of contentment:

"I can do all this 

through him who gives me strength."

                               Philippians 4:13

The Point

You won't find the contentment that Paul is talking about here in this world by looking inside yourself.

Your strength alone won't get you and keep you there.

It's a miracle we need to be content in hard times, in the way that we so deeply long to be.

I can do all this even through a time of COVID, but the only way I'll manage it will be through Him Who gives me strength.

In the sort of world we inhabit where advertising millions get poured into making us discontent with what we've alreadty got every day, finding contentment in such an acquisitive cultre wedded to the lie that the quality of a man's life DOES depend on the abundance of his possessions, living contended will NEED His fresh help every day.

The Takeaway

Everything that pours in through our eyes and our ears from the people who spend the advertising billions seeks to profit from making us discontented.

The forces stacked up against our contentment our powerful.

We need help, and says Paul we can have it.

The secret of finding and retasining Christian contentment is to secure the direct intervention of God:

 ""I can do all this 

through him who gives me strength."

                               Philippians 4:13

Here is Paul's path to contentment:

• get into a right relationship with the One Who can helps us, then 
  
  
• pray for this gift of contentment as we 
  
  
• hit all sorts of troubles in this life, but
  
  
• trust in His astonishing power to be able to achieve contented peace for us, and 
  
  
• worship Him for the all-sufficiency of our Saviour ... 

The secret of contentment lies simply in this: HE's the One Who gives Paul the strength to be contented!