Monday, March 10, 2008

Christian Contentment, Part II

Chapter Two: The Mystery of Contentment

Christian contentment is not impossible, for all who learn the art of it – which is to say, to apprehend the mystery of it. This mystery is a mixture of a full awareness of the affliction (and in fact endeavoring to remove it by all lawful means) with joyful contentment.

To open up this mystery:
  1. The contented Christian is also the most unsatisfied person in the world – unsatisfied, that is, with the enjoyment of all the world. Those things that will satisfy the world will not satisfy him. Though he is contented with God in a little, yet those things that would content other men will not content him. “Lord, do with me what You will for my passage through this world; I will be content with that, but I cannot be content with all the world for my portion.” And, “the peace of God is not enough to a gracious heart except it may have the God of that peace.” “I must have the Cause as well as the effect.” Psalm 73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside You.
  2. The Christian comes to contentment not by addition but by subtraction – from his desires, so that his desires and his circumstances are equal. For the carnal heart, contentment means the having of all possessions and comforts now lacking. For the Christian, getting up to what he wants is related to getting his desires down to what he has. Whether richer or poorer, “let God but fashion and suit his heart to those circumstances and he will be content.” As an illustration, consider the lengths of one's legs and the commensurate ease with which he walks. A great, powerful, wealthy man with an even prouder heart is like a man with one long leg and one short one. Another man whose circumstances are low and whose heart is, too, walks with much more ease than the first.
  3. The Christian comes to contentment not so much by getting rid of the burden he now has, than by adding another burden – i.e., by getting his heart more burdened by his sin of abusing those mercies God has now taken away from him, he will be less burdened by his afflictions.
  4. The mystery of Christian contentment involves not so much the removing of the affliction as the changing of it, as the water of affliction to the wine of heavenly consolation. Luther: “...out of heaviness, joy, out of terror, comfort, out of sin, righteousness, and out of death, life.”
  5. The Christian comes to contentment not by making up the wants of his circumstances, but by the performance of the work of his circumstances. The carnal heart: “I must have my wants made up in order to be content.” The gracious heart: “What is the duty of the circumstances God has put me into? ... It is the counsel of God that has brought me into these circumstances ... and I desire to serve the counsel of God in these circumstances.”
  6. A gracious heart is contented by the melting of his will and desires into God's will and desires; by this he gets contentment. The carnal heart thinks contentment is achieved by the satisfaction of desires. The gracious heart still comes to have his desires fulfilled, though he doesn't obtain the thing he desired before. Beyond merely submitting to God's will is making God's will and his own the same. “O what God would have, I would have, too; I will not only yield to it, but I would have it, too.” The gracious heart has learned to make not just God's commanding will his own -- in other words, doing what He commands – but to make God's providential will and operative will his own as well.
  7. The mystery consists not in bringing in anything from outside to make one's situation more comfortable, but in purging something that is within – one's lusts and bitterness. Cf. James 4:1.

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