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Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need (Philippians 4:11-12).
Make a note of the comprehensiveness of the extremes. Life could bring the apostle low, or it could make him abound. Paul could face plenty and abundance or hunger and need. The situation did not matter to Paul. He was content under any circumstance and in any context.
He had learned this secret to living well in God’s world. The Lord had put him through the rigors of His educational system, and Paul came out on the other side with the precious jewel of contentment. There is a simplicity on the other side of complexity, which Paul found only after going through many life-adjusting events. This path to contentment is contrary to how our culture teaches us to find happiness.
The goal of the marketing gurus is to create discontentment with the hope of motivating us to buy their products, which they say is the final right answer for the sad soul.
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing (Ecclesiastes 1:8).
Their methods are cycles that lead to ever-increasing desperation. These purveyors of our souls have duped us into participating in their endless loop of mind control while growing our appetites for one more thing. It goes like this:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psalm 23:1).
To have contentment, you must understand it. If you do not know what it is, you may swerve off course, looking for it in the wrong places, only to come back empty. Paul described contentment as having two parts.
Fullness – To be full or complete is analogous to finishing a fabulous meal and being filled. I’m not talking about being stuffed but filled. You lean back in your chair and moan the moan that signals to everyone that you have all you need and there is no desire for anything else.
Satisfaction – Self-satisfaction does not mean you are satisfied “with” yourself, but that you are satisfied “by” yourself. This type of happiness is to be independent, separated, and not controlled by your circumstances. This level of maturity is a satisfaction of the mind that is not manipulated by other people or any situation.
A person who is full and satisfied is free from the pressures and manipulations of the world. They are not separated from the world as though the world does not matter, but the world does not control them.
Contentment does not release you from caring about the cares of life, but it frees you from being controlled by the concerns of life. Jesus always cared, always pursued, and always fought for change, but He was not under the spell of worldly temptations (James 1:14-15).
Jesus had an internal gyroscope that kept Him stable, even when there were storms (Mark 4:35-41). Christ submitted Himself to His Father, which prevented Him from succumbing to lesser, insignificant powers.
You will not find this kind of contentment in a drive-through culture, where you supposedly realize dreams instantaneously. The most satisfied people are those who put themselves under the Lord’s tutorship for years.
Contentment is something that you learn from acquired knowledge that comes through skill and experience. It is a process that you submit to—a process where the Lord burns contentment deep into your soul. Paul said it this way:
The Lord led Paul into the initiation of the secret that did not come to him all at once. He did not learn contentment until the Lord guided him into situations that would transform him. The only way Paul could learn this secret of the contented life when facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need was by walking with the Lord through those dangers, toils, and snares (2 Corinthians 11:23-29).
This secret to contentment is similar to the process of most things we learn. Anybody can say they have learned the secret of marriage, but if they have not been married or have not suffered the hardships of marriage, it is not valid. You cannot learn the secret of high-level life lessons if you have never experienced them.
Paul went through what appeared to be never-ending challenges. His adversity is why he could say that he had learned contentment. The proof was in the pudding or, in his case, it was in his heart. His two requirements for peace were (1) severe and challenging circumstances and (2) the constant practice of humbly responding to the Lord through those circumstances. If you possess these things, you can say with Paul,
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need.
All of life is a process of learning contentment. Everything that happens to you is to teach you how to be content. Your life story, the one the Lord is writing for you, is a process for practicing contentment. The blending of the ups and the downs throughout your day are opportunities for you to learn and apply this secret about peace that most people do not understand and have not learned.
The secret Paul learned was previously a mystery to him. As he labored through his circumstances with the Lord, he understood the secret of contentment. And what was that secret? It was this: God is always working in us for His glory and our good (Romans 8:28). The Lord allows all things into our lives to initiate a whole new way of thinking and living for Him and others.
God is always at work in you, using everything that happens to you, as His initiation process into a life of contentment. – Charlie Boyd
You will not find “God’s contentment” in a book because there are areas in the Christian life that are more mysterious than methodological. You must learn some lessons over and over and over, again and again, and again. Most of us want a book that gives us five to seven steps that will show us the way to a happier life. You cannot reduce God’s Word or His ways to principles and takeaways.
While there may be some benefit to plans and processes, those things will not bring transformation to your soul. Methods are behavioral, superficial ways that do not penetrate to the secret mysteries of the heart. Only the Spirit of God, working in tandem with the Word of God (with your humble cooperation), can place this kind of jewel inside of you (Romans 8:26; 1 Corinthians 2:10; Hebrews 4:12-13).
Contentment is an inside-to-outside experience, not an outside-to-inside process. Our culture teaches us to pamper ourselves on the outside so we will find satisfaction on the inside. We know their approach does not work. The eye is never full of seeing, and the ear is never full of hearing (Ecclesiastes 1:8). There is no amount of external, behavioral pleasure you can bring to yourself that will satisfyingly fill you on the inside.
The search for contentment is up to you. What choice will you make? Will you take the hard road by living your life from the inside to the outside? Or will you pursue the insatiable route of working from the outside to the inside?
The outside-to-inside life is external, and the only way you can manage it is by controlling all of your circumstances. If you can bring all of your daily and life events under the power of your sovereign care, you will be able to enjoy contentment.
This process will require you to keep all the bad things from you while permitting only good outcomes to enter into your control center. This mindset means you will need to control all present situations while predicting future events so you can position yourself to bend those future events to your favor.
The inside-to-outside life is internal first of all. It is counterintuitive to our world, which means it falls in line with the gospel (Galatians 2:14). This kind of life acknowledges and embraces weakness over strength (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, 4:7).
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
The contented person is quicker to say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” (See Luke 22:42). It is not that he has no personal power, but that he does not use it. He submits his strength for the more significant might of the Lord. In this way, the contented person is stronger than the self-reliant person because he is relying on someone stronger. To build your life on yourself is an admission of weakness, not strength.
Charlie Boyd described the outside to inside people as thermometers and the inside to outside people as thermostats.
Thermometers are controlled and manipulated by the environment, while thermostats decide how things will be in the room. The former is reactive, and the latter is proactive.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).
The first step in acquiring contentment is a simple acknowledgment: “I know the Lord is working in my life through this circumstance.” Name the circumstance the Lord has brought into your life.
How you answer questions three and four will tell you if you are on the path to contentment or the road of ever-increasing relational dysfunction. The peaceful person is like a thermostat. When the heat rises, he brings the regulating power of the Spirit of God into the room, which places everyone’s soul at ease.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
