How Can We Be More Content?

By Julie-Ann Lattimer-Wesleyan Life Magazine

…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands… (1 Thess. 4:11).

• Don’t compare yourself to others. If you do, look at those less fortunate and you’ll be thankful for what you have.
• Take a walk and look at nature. It’s God creation, not man’s. We can see His plan and control of this earth through the beauty and balance of nature.
• Read a book about India, Haiti or another third-world country. What we label bare necessities are unattainable luxuries to these people.
• When feeling shut-in, get out. Go to the library or a museum, not the mall.
• When feeling down about your job, think of those unemployed. If you’re exhausted or feeling over-worked, kick off your shoes and relax. Be thankful you’re tired from a hard day’s work instead of boredom.
• Dissatisfied with your looks? Gramma always said, “Beauty is a clean face, shiny hair, and a pure heart.” Anyone can have it.
• Do something thoughtful for someone. Thinking of others keeps our minds off ourselves.
• Focus on what is good in your life and rely on God to supply all your needs, not your wants.
• Enjoy the freebies in life: flowers, sunsets, love, family, friends and Christ’s salvation.
• Meditate on heaven and eternity. Our present situation is temporary.

Contentment is not boredom or lack of ambition. It is an acceptance. Being content does not depend on circumstances. With God’s help, may we say, as the apostle Paul did, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11).