Free to Love
How contentment liberates us to love others more fully
“She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.” – CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
You’ve probably had the experience of being “loved” like that. Someone acts in a way that they seem to think is kind, but you feel it as anything but. The smothering affection with a chaser of guilt. The manipulative schmooze. The “friendly advice” lobbed like a stink bomb into a dorm room.
Discontentment produces this kind of self-centered “love.” If my baseline condition is coveting, bitterness, or some form of neediness, then I’m going to use others as means for my own ego. Godly contentment, though, frees us to actually love the people in front of us.
Contentment frees our minds to see others
I recently heard someone say, “You cannot love what you do not know.” He was the director of an orphanage in South America, speaking to comfortable Alabamians. In a word, he said that love begins with attention.
A contented mind is free to see others in a way that a discontented one is not. Imagine looking at a beautiful landscape through two windows: one that’s spotlessly clean, and one that’s dirty. The dirty window not only impedes your view of the landscape, but also draws your attention to it. The clean window, though, is invisible, allowing you to see the beauty outside. A contented soul is like a clean window – we see others through it. A soul smudged with envy or anxiety, though, distracts us from seeing what we should.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone and realized partway through they were thinking about something completely different? (Or been the distracted person?) In that moment, you felt unloved, because the person was mentally absent from you. Discontentment makes us “curved in on ourselves” in a way that distracts us from seeing others.
When the soul is at rest, we’re able to see the world around us with greater attention. And if our goal is to love others, we’re not distracted from that goal by competing desires. We can focus on them rather than being distracted by ourselves.
Contentment frees our hearts to love others
A discontented heart is a needy heart. It feels like it’s missing something, and that lack makes it feel poor. It’s like a hoarder: however much it has, it can’t give anything away because “I might need it.” If we never have enough – enough time, enough money, enough emotional energy – we’ll be so internally busy hoarding or scrounging that we won’t be able to give.
A contented soul, by contrast, has a sense of internal surplus that enables it to give. Little Women is about a family whose father/husband is away in the Civil War, and who are doing their best to make life work. They wake up to a “miraculous” Christmas dinner – one their mother has scrimped and scrounged to make possible – only to find out about a family in greater need than they:
The generosity the girls are able to find is only possible because they’re able to choose contentment. They can be so satisfied with what they have that they’re willing to give to others.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul is taking up a collection to relieve impoverished Christians in Judea. He writes this about the churches in Macedonia:
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. (2 Corinthians 8:1-4)
Despite being in “extreme poverty,” the Macedonians gave beyond their means to help relieve their brothers and sisters in Judea. Even with little, they were content enough to give to those in greater need rather than hoarding or seeking more. As Paul said, they trusted that God was enough: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Contentment frees our egos to push others toward Christ
The discontented soul is like a pit that draws everything into itself. If I’m consumed by coveting or bitterness or greed, I’ll be inclined to use people to fill the void in my ego. I’ll see you for what I can take from you, or for what you might take from me. I’ll only care about you in reference to me. Even acts that seem to be loving can merely be about manipulating you into giving me something. Discontentment can turn “love” into smothering codependency or a manipulative sham.
A satisfied soul, though, genuinely seeks the good of others. It cares what is best for them, not just how they might make me feel better. And the greatest act of love we can make is to help others be more deeply committed to and satisfied in Jesus. We’re going to love them in a way that helps them see, worship, and depend on him.
So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. … We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:8-9, 12)
Contentment in Christ produces this kind of love. It delights in the beloved. It wants to share “its own self” with the beloved, and wants to relieve burdens instead of give them. And it does this, not to draw the beloved into orbiting me, but to guide the beloved to God’s kingdom, which is the greatest good I could wish for it. If my ego is satisfied in Christ, I’ll be able to see that clearly and love others toward that highest good.