Introducing The Fight for Contentment
A new book project for Allison and me!
Note: For a quick health update from me (micro version: I seem to be doing better!), jump to the bottom.
As we’ve been through the last year, contentment is a theme that’s emerged consistently for Allison and me. She’s been reading through The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment with a friend for the past year, and that book has been a consistent source of comfort, conviction, and invigorating challenge. The limitations and uncertainties we’ve faced with two autoimmune condition diagnoses while parenting small kids and ministering to others have confronted us with uncountable opportunities to choose grumbling or fear versus contentment and gratitude. And as I wrote my reflections on the season, some of the thoughts that resonated most with readers were related to contentment.
The fight for contentment
In the past I would probably have described contentment as an emotion like happiness – an experience that happens to me. But look at what the apostle Paul writes (while in jail for preaching the gospel!) about contentment:
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Contentment isn’t an emotion; it’s a choice. And a choice that we can make in abundance and need, seasons of plenty or seasons of lack. In terms of material comforts, our world is abundant beyond the wildest dreams of people in Paul’s day (first century AD) and even Jeremiah Burroughs’ day (1600s). They both lived when food scarcity was common, infant mortality high, diseases barely treatable, and more. But bizarrely, I’d bet that if you could measure human contentment over time, you’d barely see a nudge between those times and now. (Sadly, if the trends of teen/young adult anxiety and deaths of despair continue, we’re getting less content than we were)
And the more Allison and I have talked about our own experience, we’ve realized that contentment doesn’t just feel like a choice: it feels like a fight. A fight that makes a difference in our marriage, our parenting, and our relationship with God.
To that end, we’ve decided to put some time this coming year to write a book on the fight for contentment. We feel strongly enough about it that I’m setting my meditation book aside for a bit to focus on this, and we’re really excited to see what comes.
Help us write the book!
We have a research and writing plan taking shape, and we’d love you to help us make it better. If you have anything that’s inspired you in your fight for contentment …
Scripture verses or truths about God
Books, articles, podcasts, etc
Examples or stories from people’s lives
Practical actions or tips
Questions or issues you’d want addressed
… or anything else, comment or email us to share them! (I promise to quote you :) )
And as we write out partial thoughts on this Substack, we’d love to hear from you what you find helpful and what you have questions about.
We’re really excited about this. We hope you’ll join us in fighting for contentment.
Quick health update (2023.12.5):
I had a check-up yesterday, and it seems like we’re finally on a recovery track. My energy is way up from where it had been, and I’m beginning to make small recoveries of strength, range of motion, and voice/throat stuff. We’re still on a multi-month recovery path that will have ups and downs, and the future isn’t real yet, but it seems like the treatment plan we’re on is moving us in the right direction, praise God!
I’m also eating like a high-schooler bulking up for football tryouts, throat muscles permitting. Christmas season is a good time for that :)
Hey Joseph,
I am very excited about you and Allison’s book idea! Here is a devotional along those lines by the Puritan Octavius Winslow that encouraged me!! I love you, brother!! Claude
DECEMBER 1.
“He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Malachi 3:3
“Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the refiner.” Proverbs 25:4
MARK the great and glorious end of this fiery process—a righteous offering to the Lord; and a vessel formed, prepared, and beautified for the Refiner; a “vessel unto honor, meet for the Master’s use.” Blessed result! Oh the wonders wrought by the fire of God’s furnace! Not only is “God glorified in the fire,” but the believer is sanctified. Have you ever observed the process of the artificer in the preparation of his beautiful ornament? After removing it from its mold, skillfully and properly formed, he then traces upon it the design he intended it should bear, dipping his pencil in varied hues of the brightest coloring. But the work is not yet finished. The shape of that ornament is yet to be fixed, the figures are to be set, the colors perpetuated, and the whole work consolidated. By what process?—by passing through the fire. The fire alone completes the work. Thus is it with the chastened soul—that beautifully constructed vessel, which is to adorn the palace of our King through eternity—the gaze, the wonder, the delight of every holy intelligence. God has cast it into the Divine mold, has drawn upon it the “image of His Son,” with a pencil dipped in heaven’s own colors—but it must pass through the furnace of affliction, thus to stamp completeness and eternity upon the whole. Calmly, then, repose in the hands of your Divine Artificer, asking not the extinguishment of a spark until the holy work is completed. God may temper and soften—for He never withdraws His eye from the work for one moment—but great will be your loss, if you lose the affliction unsanctified! Oh! could we with a clearer vision of faith but see the reason and the design of God in sending the chastisement, all marvel would cease, all murmur would be hushed, and not a painful dispensation of our Father would afford us needless trouble. David’s pen never wrote more sweetly than when dipped in the ink of affliction. And never did his harp send forth deeper, richer melody than when the breath of sadness swept its strings. This has been the uniform testimony of the saints of God in every age. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; for before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept your law.” Learn to see a Father’s hand, yes, a Father’s heart, in every affliction. It is not a vindictive enemy who has chastened you, but a loving Friend: not an unfeeling stranger, but a tender Father, who, though He may cast you down in the dust, will never cast you off from His love. The Captain of your salvation—Himself made perfect through suffering—only designs your higher spiritual promotion in His army, by each sanctified affliction sent. You are on your way to the mansion prepared for you by the Savior, to the kingdom bestowed upon you by God. The journey is short, and time is fleeting; what though the cross is heavy and the path is rough—you have not far nor long to carry it. Let the deep-drawn sigh be checked by the throb of gladness which this prospect should create. “He will not always chide, neither will he retain his anger forever.” The wind will not always moan, nor the waters be always tempestuous; the dull vapor will not forever float along the sky, nor the sunbeams be forever wreathed in darkness. Your Father’s love will not always speak in muffled tones, nor your Savior hide Himself forever behind the wall or within the lattice. That wind will yet breathe music, those waters will yet be still; that vapor will yet evaporate; that sun will yet break forth; your Father’s love will speak again in unmuffled strains, and your Savior will manifest Himself without a veil. Pensive child of sorrow! Weary pilgrim of grief! timid, yet prayerful; doubting, yet hoping; guilty, yet penitent; laying your hand on the head of the great appointed Sacrifice, you look up with tears, confessing your sin, and pleading in faith the blood of sprinkling. Oh, rejoice that this painful travail of soul is but the Spirit’s preparation for the seat awaiting you in the upper temple, where the days of your mourning will be ended. You may carry the cross to the last step of the journey—weeping even up to heaven’s gate—but there you shall lay that cross down, and the last bitter tear shall there be wiped away forever! Truly we may exclaim, “Blessed is the man whom You chastens, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law.”