In the job where God has placed you, you can learn the sweet lessons of contentment. Contentment which you will enjoy perfectly in heaven. Contentment is the secret to courageous obedience to God.

A contented spirit is like a watch that keeps on ticking whether you are engaged in vigorous physical activity or quietly sleeping. When you have learned the secret of contentment, you can sing in jobs that you enjoy, and in jobs that you don’t enjoy; you can sing when you work in a great work environment, and you can sing when you work in a toxic environment.

To learn the secret of contentment all you need to do is learn to cast your cares upon the Lord (1 Pet 5:7) and trust that God will do his work of taking care of your cares. Learning the secret of contentment is to be made like Christ with his holiness, grace and mercy engraved upon your heart. A contented heart is a temple where the praises of God are sung forth, not a tomb where they are buried.

A person who has learned the secret of contentment has learned to pour out their soul before God, telling him all their troubles and sorrows. This isn’t murmuring or complaining about God, or your job, or your workplace. God in his wisdom has placed you in your workplace, so why should you be discontented and want something other than what God has decreed for you for this season of your life?

Discontentment is often the first link in a chain of sins. Discontentment can lead to impatience or murmuring against God. Satan loves to fish in the troubled waters of discontentment, fishing out pride, envy, covetousness, jealousy, distrust and selfish ambition. Discontentment bellyaches in the midst of God’s mercies like Adam who sinned in the midst of paradise.

Pray that God will bring contentment to your heart. For your prayers oiled with tears unlocks the discontentment in your heart. Unloading your cares to the Lord in prayer washes out the sorrow and disquiet in your heart allowing sweet contentment to flow in and cleanse your troubled spirit.

The Holy Spirit infuses your soul with contentment when you surrender your will to your Heavenly Father. Because contentment resides in your soul nothing in your workplace can hinder this blessed contentment. The title to your spiritual treasure in heaven remains whatever your situation in life is. Contentment is the only remedy against whatever troubles or burdens you may have. With contentment you can say “If God be mine, that is sufficient”.

In Christ you have everything you need to learn to be content. In Christ are unsearchable riches; a gold mine of wisdom and grace that all the saints and angels can never empty.

In Christ is more than enough love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness and self-control that you need to be content. In Christ are both the necessities of life and the abundance of life. In your strengths and weaknesses draw upon the infinite resources in Christ to learn contentment.

When you learn contentment, your heart can be like the sea when it is smooth and calm. When you learn contentment, the joy on your face reflects God’s grace overflowing from your heart. When your soul rests in the ark of contentment, you can sail above the waves of trouble. Like Noah in the ark, tossed about the waves of the flood you can worship the Lord in your workplace.

To learn contentment, you must feed regularly on God’s promises. Jesus is not only your teacher in holiness and righteousness, Jesus is your source of holiness and righteousness. Faith will silence your doubts and scatter your fears by sucking the honey of contentment from the hive of God’s promises. Faith alone brings your heart to a place of sweet, serene composure.

Learning contentment sets you free to abundantly care for others. Your generosity flowing from a spirit of contentment brings forth flowers in the cold of winter in the lives of those you choose to bless. Contentment flourishes when you are growing in faith, hope and love in community with other people.

Contentment isn’t passive. Contentment constantly strives for more grace, more conformity to Christ, more communion with Christ.

May you be able to say every day with the Psalmist in Psalm 131:

 

My heart is not proud,
Lord, my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

Put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.
(Psalm 131)