Secrets of Contentment
“I am glad to think T am not bound to make the world go right, But only to discover, and to do with cheerful heart, The work that God appoints.”
Some one has said that if men were to be saved by contentment, instead of by faith in Christ, most people would be lost. Yet contentment is a duty. It is also possible. There was one man at least who said, and said it very honestly, ‘’ I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be content.’* His words have special value, too, when we remember in what circumstances they were written. They were dated in a prison, when the writer was wearing a chain. It is easy enough to say such things in the summer days of prosperity; but to say them amid trials and adversities requires a real
experience of victorious living.
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But what did St. Paul mean when he said, “I am content”? He certainly did not mean that he was satisfied. Contentment is not an indolent giving up to circumstances. It does not come through the dying out of desire and aspiration in the heart. There is a condition of mind which some people suppose to be devout submission to God’s will which is anything but Christlike. We are to make the most of our life. We are not to yield irresolutely and weakly to everything that opposes us. Ofttimes we are to resist and conquer what seem to be impossibilities. We are never to be satisfied with our attainments, or our achievements, however fine they may be. Satisfaction is undivine; it is a mark of death, not of life. St. Paul never was satisfied. He lived to the very last day of his life looking forward, and not back — forgetting things behind, and stretching forward to things yet before, eager to do more and achieve more. When he said he had learned to be content, he did not mean that he had ceased to aspire and strive.
The original word, scholars tells us, contains a fine sense which does not come out in the English translation. It means self-sufficing. St. Paul, as a Christian man, had in himself all that he needed to give him tranquillity and peace, and therefore he was not dependent upon any external circumstances. Wherever he went, there was in him a competence, a fountain of supply, a self-sufficing. This is the true secret of Christian contentment, wherever it is found. We cannot make our own circumstances; we cannot keep away from our life the sickness, the pain, the sorrow, the misfortune; yet as Christians we are meant to live in any and all experiences in unbroken peace, in sweet restfulness of soul.
How may this unbroken content be obtained y St. Paul’s description of his own life gives us a hint as to the way he reached it. He says, “I have learned to be content.” It is no small comfort to us common people to get this from such a man. It tells us that even with him it was not always thus; that at first he probably chafed amid discomforts, and had to” learn ‘* to be contented in trial.
It did not come naturally to him, any more than it does to the rest of us, to have peace in the heart in the time of external strife.
Nor did this beautiful way of living come to him at once, as a divine gift, when he became a Christian. He was not miraculously helped to acquire contentment. It was not a special power or grace granted to him as an apostle. He tells us plainly in his old age that he had “learned” it. This means that he was not always able to say, I am content in any state.’’ This was an attainment of his later years; and he reached it by struggle and by discipline, by learning in the school of Christ, by experience, just as all of us have to learn it, if we ever do, and as any of us may learn it if we will.
Surely every one who desires to grow into spiritual beauty should seek to learn this lesson. Discontent is a miserable fault. It grieves God, for it springs from a want of faith in him. It destroys one’s own heart -peace, — discontented people are always unhappy. It disfigures beauty of character. It sours the temper, ruffles the calm of sweet life, and tarnishes the loveliness of the spirit. It even works out through the flesh, and spoils the beauty of the fairest face. To have a transfigured face, one must have heaven in one’s heart. Just in proportion as the lesson is learned are the features brightened by the outshining of the indwelling peace. Besides all this, discontent casts shadows on the lives of others. One discontented person in a family often makes a whole household wretched. If not for our own sake, then, we ought at least for the sake of our friends to learn to be contented. We have no right to cast shadows on other lives by our miserable complainings and discontents.
But how can we learn contentment t One step toward it is patient submission to unavoidable ills and hardships. No earthly lot is perfect. No mortal ever yet in this world found a set of circumstances without some drawback. Sometimes, however, it lies in our power to remove the discomfort. Much of our hardship is of our own making. Much of it would require but a little energy on our own part to cure it. We surely are very foolish if day after day we live on amid ills and frets which we might change for comforts if we would. All removable troubles we ought therefore to remove. Too many people are indolent in resisting hard circumstances and conditions. They give up too readily to what they miscall divine providences. Obstacles are not always meant to block our way; oft-times they are intended to inspire us to courage and effort, and thus to bring out our hidden strength. We must not be too quick in submitting to hardness, nor too limp in yielding to circumstances. Some of the things which we find in our way we are to lift out of our way.
But there are trials which we cannot change into pleasures, burdens which we cannot lay down, crosses which we must continue to carry, thorns in the flesh which must remain with their rankling pain. When we have such trials, why should we not sweetly accept them as part of God’s best way with us y Discontent never made a rough path smoother, a heavy burden lighter, a bitter cup less bitter, a dark way brighter, a sore sorrow less sore. It only makes matters worse. One who accepts with patience that which he cannot change has learned one secret of victorious living.
Two men toiled side by side from sun to sun, And both were poor; Both sat with children, when the day was done, About their door.
One saw the beautiful in crimson cloud
And shining moon; The other, with his head in sadness bowed.
Made night of noon.
One loved each tree and flower and singing bird
On mount or plain; No music in the soul of one was stirred By leaf or rain.
One saw the good in every fellow-man,
And hoped the best; The other marvelled at his Master’s plan,
And doubt confessed.
One, having heaven above and heaven below,
Was satisfied; The other, discontented, lived in woe,
And hopeless died.”
Another part of the lesson is that we moderate our desires. “Having food and raiment,” says St. Paul again, “let us therewith be content.” Very much of our discontent arises from envy of those who seem to be more favored than ourselves. Many people lose most of the comfort out of their own lot in coveting the finer, more luxurious things some neighbor has. Yet if they knew the whole story of the life they envy for its greater prosperity, they probably would not exchange for it their own lowlier life, with its homelier circumstances. Or if they could make the exchange, it is not likely they would find half so much real happiness in the other position as they would have enjoyed in their own. Contentment does not dwell so often in palaces as in the homes of the humble. The tall peaks rise higher, and are more conspicuous, but the winds smite them more fiercely than they do the quiet vales. And surely the lot in life that God makes for us is always the best that could be made for us for the time. He knows better than we do what our true needs are.
The real cause of our discontent is not in our circumstances; if it were, a change of circumstances might cure it. It is in ourselves, and wherever we go we shall carry it with us. The only cure that will effect anything must be the curing of the fever of discontent in us.
Envious desires for other people’s places which seem finer than our own, prevent our getting the best blessings and good out of our own. Trying to grasp the things that are beyond our reach, we leave unseen, unappreciated, untouched, and despised the many sweet bits of happiness that lie close about us. Some one says, “Stretching his hand to catch the stars, man forgets the flowers at his feet, so beautiful, so fragrant, so multitudinous, and so various.’’ A fine secret of contentment lies in finding and extracting all the pleasure we can get from the things we have, the common, every-day things, while we enter upon no mad, vain chase after impossible fancies. In whatever state we are we may find therein enough for our need.
If we would learn the lesson of content-SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. vs
ment, we must also train ourselves to live for the higher things of life. One of the ancient wise men, having learned that a storm had destroyed his merchant ships, thus sweeping away all his fortune, said, “It is just as well, for now I can give up my mind more fully to study,” He had other and higher sources of enjoyment than his merchandise, and felt the loss of his ships no more than manhood feels the loss of childhood’s toys. He was but a heathen philosopher; we are Christians. He had only his studies to occupy his thought when his property was gone; we have all the blessed things of God’s love. No earthly misfortune can touch the wealth a Christian holds in the divine promises and hopes.
Just in the measure, therefore, in which we learn to live for spiritual and unseen things, do we find contentment amid earth’s trials and losses. If we would live to please God, to build up Christilke character in ourselves, and to lay up treasure in heaven, we shall not depend for happiness on the way things go with us here, nor on the measure of temporal good
py THE HIDDEN LIFE.
we have. The lower desires are crowded out by the higher. We can do without childhood’s toys when we have manhood’s better possessions. We need this world less as we get more of God and heaven into our hearts. There is a modern story of a merchant who was devoted to high purposes in life, who was determined to be a man free from bondage to the lower things. One day a ship of his that was coming homeward was delayed. He became anxious, and the next day was yet more troubled, and the third day still more. Then he came to himself, awaking to his true condition of bondage to earthly things, and said, ‘’ Is it possible that I have come to love money for itself, and not for its nobler uses y *’ Taking the value of the ship and its cargo, he gave it to charities, not because he wished to be rid of the money, but because only thus could he get the conquest over himself, holding his love of money under his feet. He was learning well one secret of contentment.
St. Paul knew this secret. He cheerfully gave up all that this world had for him. Money had no power over him. He knew how to live in plenty; but he did not fret when want came instead. He was content in any trial, because earth meant so little and Christ meant so much to him. He did not need the things he did not have; he was not made poor by the things he lost; he was not vexed by the sufferings he had to endure, because the sources of his life were in heaven, and could not be touched by earthly experiences of pain or loss. George MacDonald’s words are very true:” In life, troubles will come which look as if they would never pass away. The night and the storm look as if they would last forever, but the calm and the morning cannot be stopped. The storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to repose; for God is peace.’*
We bless thee for thy peace, O God, Deep as the soundless sea, Which falls like sunshine on the road Of those who trust in thee;
That peace which suffers and is strong,
Trusts where it cannot see;
Deems not the trial way too long.
But leaves the end with thee.”
These are hints of the way we may learn in whatsoever state we are, therein to be content. Surely the lesson is worth learning! One year of sweet content amid earth’s troublous scenes is better than a whole lifetime of vexed, restless discontent. The lesson can be learned, too, by any one who is truly Christ’s disciple; for did not the Master say, ‘’Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you” y
The artist painted life as a dark, storm-swept sea, covered with wrecks. Then out of the midst of the wild waves he made to rise a great rock, in a cleft of which, high up, amid herbage and flowers, he painted a dove sitting quietly on her nest. It is a picture of Christian peace in the midst of this world’s strifes and storms. In the cleft of the Rock is the home of content.