You only have to spend 30 minutes on Instagram or Pinterest to become acutely aware that you are not effortlessly whipping up gooey gluten-free brownies or whipping off to the South of France at a whim in your #oldmoneychic capsule wardrobe. And to add insult to injury, you and I both know that the likelihood of either of us trying that pinned ab workout or test-driving that kale smoothy for breakfast with our kids is pretty slim too. So just a little bit of “downtime” on social media has the immense potential to make us feel not only like our kitchen is blah, our wardrobe is bland and we have nothing to look forward to, but also to make us feel like in inadequate wannabee at the same time whose friends are all living their best lives while we roam around in last seasons sneakers. Thank you Third Industrial Revolution.

What is meant to inspire has not only enslaved, indebted and indoctrinated us, but it has also made many of us ungrateful, dissatisfied and stuck. And social media is not the only culprit – although it’s a big one. Hand in hand with easy access loans, our ongoing competition with the Jones’ (everyone has “that one family” right?) aggressive marketing tactics and celebrity culture, it has normalised things that aren’t even normal, like custom kitchens, wardrobes that seem bottomless in their #ootd options, professionally organised closets and perfectly filtered vacations. And it has – from what I can see – successfully morphed the aspirations of even the most down-to-earth among us into thinking, well, if only I had MORE of this or a BETTER that or LIVED here and VACATIONED there. I have become more and more aware of the restless discontent that marks so many conversations that I am in, conversations with people just like me, who in truth (and certainly in the SA context) have very very little to complain about and much much much to be grateful for. Our cravings have pierced us with many pangs (1 Tim 6 v 10) and we not only live like that’s normal, justifiable even, but these cravings are costly – most especially in terms of our relationship with Jesus. Maybe this is why the Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs spoke of “The rare jewel of Christian contentment”. A restless discontent is at the root of so many of our struggles. Our debt. Our dissatisfaction in our marriages and other relationships. Our disproportionate (again, considering our context) ingratitude over the roofs we have over our heads, that we may finally be satisfied with if only we could put in those screed floors or stacking doors. For many of us contentment seems not only unrealistic but also, sadly, unimportant.

But if your life, like mine, has changed drastically in the last 4 years, you have maybe discovered, as I did, that what the Bible says about contentment is not only fascinating but certainly worth deeper consideration. Paul – in the famously misquoted verses of Phil 4 v 11 – 13 tells us that he had learned to be content both in the worst of times and the best of times, in being degraded and being exalted, in having more than enough and in having too little. And that this learning is based on being strengthened by Christ. And the writer to the Hebrews warns us in Heb 13 v 5 to keep our lives free from the love of money and be content with what we have based on the promise of the presence of God.

From these 2 verses, let’s unpack what contentment is, and isn’t!

“My brethren, the reason why you have not got contentment in the things of the world is not because you have not got enough of them. That is not the reason. But the reason is because they are not things proportionable to that immortal soul of yours that is capable of God himself. Many men think that when they are troubled and have no contentment, it is because they have but a little in the world, and if they had more then they would be content. That is just as if a man were hungry, and to satisfy his craving stomach he should gape and hold open his mouth to take in the wind, and then should think that the reason why he is not satisfied is because he has not got enough of the wind. No, the reason is because the thing is not suitable to a craving stomach.” – Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

But can we really be content…..like, really? To be honest, I am not sure. But I for one desperately want to be! So I have come up with some personal methods to practice contentment that I am happy to share with you:

• Learn to tell yourself the truth. For me that has not meant necessarily setting aside things I long to have or do, it has meant simply accepting that, in this season of my life, there are things that I can’t afford to care about. It has become somewhat of a mantra for me. This has been particularly helpful for me in light of the lifestyles of friends who are not in self-funded ministry as I am and therefore have more disposable income than I do.
• Interrogate your aspirations in light of the truth of God – not the “truth” of the world. We cannot make what we strive for a higher priority than a pursuit of the Kindom of God (Matt 6 v 33), nor make the achievements of those aspirations the bar for our personal peace and satisfaction (Ps 37 v 4). It will be easy to see if we have – if we are willing to do some hard introspection and look past our own justifications about how we have made “desires” into needs. Repent of selfish ambition that may have caused you to become out of step with the Kingdom you are a part of (Phil 2 v 3) and lose sight of it as a priority in both a spiritual and practical sense.
• Ask God to give you divinely set aspirations and a desire to view them as something more worthwhile to be gained than anything on your Amazon wishlist (1 Tim 6 v 6 – 8).
• Simplify your life. Contentment takes courage in a culture caught up in consumerism and excess.
• Delight in God as a daily decision. Maybe take a break from Social media and turn off the Amazon and Superbalist notifications, both of which will give you an endless stream of “things to delight in”. In light of our pursuit of contentment, those are, in the words of Puritan Burroughs, “distracting, heart-consuming cares”.

Wow this blog was hard for me to write! The truth is this is an ongoing wrestle for me. But in some ways, I am glad to be wrestling. I believe it’s better than the alternative.

AW Tozer said, “Contentment with earthly goods is the mark of a saint; contentment with our spiritual state is the mark of inward blindness. ” May – with God’s help – our religious complacency and consumerist striving swap places in our hearts – because we will be, in the end, the sum total of our hungers.