Contentment

I’ve got another excerpt for you today from Sally Breedlove’s Choosing Rest. The last time I discussed her book, we learned that “we carry the burden of eternity in our hearts.” Today I’m going to share with you one of the things that prevents us from feeling true rest – a lack of contentment. I really appreciated her various definitions for greed, envy and covetousness, and regret that I’m sure I’ve been guilty of them all.

Contentment. Without it there really is no rest. Yet our discontented hearts yearn unceasingly for something else, something more, something different from what we have. We are convinced life lies just around the next bend or in the acquisition of one more thing. We are sure contentment would flow into our souls if we could rearrange the past, removing the sting of old regrets...

Our battle to learn contentment is often a fierce one. Some of our English words reveal to us how serious our problem is. Greed, envy, and covetousness are harsh terms, but they give shape to the vague feelings of restless dissatisfaction that ebb and flow within us.

The root for our English word greed is a deviation from the Greek word for grace. When our souls are swayed by greed, we misjudge the grace of God: We cannot see what we have as a grace gift from Him; and we choose to believe that what others have is a far better expression of God’s goodness than the lot we’ve drawn. Little wonder Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

Envy takes greed to a more destructive level. Envy is from the Latin root word that means “to look with malice.” As we envy, we look maliciously on the people who have what we don’t have. We no longer simply wish we had a different life. The spirit of discontent has poisoned our souls on a deeper level. We believe that what others have should be denied them until we’ve achieved a full quotient of happiness. Because Solomon saw the destructive power of envy, he warned, “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones” (Proverbs 14:30).

Finally, covetousness joins two Latin roots, one meaning “desire” and one meaning “vapor.” These root words paint an accurate picture of the nature of covetousness. As coveting grips our hearts, we fritter away our lives in pursuit of things that only turn to vapor as we draw near. As James pointed out, even if our coveting becomes belligerent, it still leads to nothing: “You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want” (James 4:2).

When greed, envy, and coveting rule our souls, contentment is far away. Our hearts are restless.