Contentment

If you are like me, you have prayed for healing, or for relief from a difficult situation. Maybe you’ve even prayed for money or children or success. Sometimes God grants such prayers. But if we are being honest, many times such prayers go unanswered. Some people have even lost their faith or turned against God because they found themselves in tough circumstances and their prayers for help seemed to fall on deaf ears.

There is nothing inherently wrong with prayers like these. But we should recognize that they are worldly—they are focused on this life. And we should not expect God to grant them, although he might do so.

The ancient Israelites kept falling into idolatry because their idols offered something God never did—control. If you gave the gods the proper homage and offered the right sacrifices (some of which were human sacrifices, by the way), the gods would give you what you desired: children, rain, good crops, etc. And if they didn’t . . . well then, you must not have done it right. (Some Christians think that way, too. I have heard faith healing preachers say that if you didn’t get the healing you prayed for, then you must not have had enough faith. That is not biblical.) The gods were like a vending machine—pay your money and receive your selection.

God was never like that. He essentially said “trust me, obey me, and I’ll take care of you.” God, not the people, was in control. And he still is.

It is a mark of spiritual maturity when we learn to accept our circumstances and trust God for the rest. That is what Paul is saying in Philippians 4:11-13:

I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with little, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Paul was not above praying for himself. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 he describes how he prayed three times that God would remove a “thorn in the flesh” that tormented him. God refused, responding, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” So Paul learned to accept his sufferings—and he did suffer a lot, as he discusses in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28—and to even be happy about them: “Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Being content in difficult circumstances is hard. It takes spiritual maturity, faith, and trust in God. So let us work on developing those traits so that we can learn to always say, like Christ in Gethsemane, “Thy will be done.”