CONTENTMENT

As we approach a new year, I always do an evaluation on where my life is now and where it is headed.  I have been consciously practicing an “attitude of gratitude” in the last couple of years, but I find myself being challenged by being “content” in all things….being grateful for the present.

I’m the type of person, who rushes ahead often going through the motions of any current activity on my way to the next one.  My heart and my body haven’t always been good about sharing the same space.  Instead of relishing each moment each year, each opportunity, each step of the journey, I'm constantly overeager to get to the next thing, which always looks more enticing than what’s currently before me.  I’m rarely satisfied in full with my present station.

As a teenager, I’d impatiently rushed toward young adulthood full throttle.  As a single, I couldn’t wait to be in a committed relationship where “life really began”.  Then as a wife, I secretly longed for my days of independence and freedom, where I could have my home all to myself.  Then even as a single-mother of 15-years I become so self-absorbed, that I never took the time to really SLOW down and cherish the precious moments of my sweet little red-headed boy, or spend more time with him, or raise him up in the things of the Lord.  WHY?  Because I’d been there in these phases of my life, but I hadn’t really “been there”.

And with the year coming to a close it occurred to me that I hadn’t engaged fully in this one either.  Now it is nearly over and all the things, people, events, relationships, and milestones that would make it a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I had seemed to rush through not really living in the present.

I recognized that by rushing through life, I’d been subtly devaluing those around me and the experiences I was involved in, not appreciating the importance and significance they bring to my life at this very moment, not grasping my responsibility for holding dear and treating well THESE GIFTS God has entrusted to me.  Instead of EMBRACING the privilege of being a blessing to my, children, friends and others, I’d been quietly communicating that I wanted them to change and speed up to get busy being somebody else, someone who’s more in line with what I WANT and need, to hurry along to a place where they could make me happier by being what I wanted for me. That’s been me.  UGH! Always looking to the next moment, month, event, rarely allowing myself the privilege of fully participating and embracing the happenings that were right before me. And with one final eye opening moment I realized this feeling had a name:  discontentment.

He shows up at my doorstep and refuses to leave spreading his baggage everywhere.  He comes, lingers, and robs me of years.  Then before I know it, I’ve missed out on the JOYS in the JOURNEY, the growth that comes from battling through the difficulties the sweet and savory experience of creating the MEMORIES. 

Going into this next year…I PROMISE to MYSELF to NEVER AGAIN MISS ANYTHING in my LIFE.  TO CHERISH and be CONTENT with where I AM at the PRESENT MOMENT. 

Consider what the Bible says about contentment:

1 Tim. 6:6 – True Godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.

1Tim. 6:8 – If we have food and clothing with these we shall be content.

Heb. 13:5 – Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; fore HE Himself has said, “I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you”

QUESTIONS for thought:

▪ What have you been hurrying to?

▪ What are some of the good parts of your experience that you’ve missed in your attempt to RUSH  through the more difficult ones?

▪ What can you do differently today to SOAK UP and LIVE IN all the good things around you and begin to enjoy the journey of your life?

START TODAY...CHERISH the NOW...because NOW is all you have...in THIS LIFE!