Finally... Content // The Road to Contentment, Part 4

Not everybody on this planet is meant to get married. Some will stay single all their lives. Others will find themselves single again, through marriage breakdown, or the death of their spouse. Question is – can a single person be truly content?

FINDING CONTENTMENT IN SINGLENESS

The last time we talked about marriage and family on the program … last year I think it was … I had a number of requests from single people to talk about singleness. So today, as we chat about contentment again, I thought that that would be a great thing to do.Because there are some people who don’t want to be married. There are some people who were never meant to be married.

I was having dinner just the other night with a bunch of my classmates from the Royal Military College Duntroon.Now, we graduated from the college over 30 years ago, as officers in the Australian army, so it had been a while. One of the guys, a great bloke, salt of the earth, has never been married. He lives on a yacht on a marina, and works at one of the large, free to air TV stations.

Now, this guy is a live wire – he’s always been that and he always will be. Some would call him eccentric. He is totally content being who he is, being single and I doubt he will ever get married. Knowing him as I do, can I tell you, I think that’s the right choice for him.

No, I am not saying that everyone who’s single is slightly eccentric. It’s just one example. But I think sometimes the rest of us – the ones who are married – sometimes we think that people who have never been married and are never likely to be married are a little bit odd. But that’s not the case.

Some people are meant to be married and others aren’t. That’s exactly what Jesus said. Matthew chapter 19, verses 9 to 11:

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unfaithfulness, and marries another commits adultery. So His disciples said to him, ‘Well if that’s the case, isn’t it better not to get married.’ But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept that teaching, but only those to whom it is given’.

And so to me, when it comes to contentment and the decision to be married or single, that’s the key. Some can accept the idea of being single. They like the idea of remaining single, and so it’s an awesome choice for them. As we’ll see in a moment, it frees them up to get focussed on God’s work without any restrictions or limitations. The rest of us need to see that as a perfectly valid choice.

Others, like me, can’t accept that. I am not one to remain single. And so those people should seek out a wife or a husband as the case may be and get married. And again that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says, expounding a bit on what Jesus said. Let’s have a read, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 to 9:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman.’ But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and to come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of a command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another having a different kind. To the unmarried and to the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, then they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

Some people might be surprised about the fact that the Bible is so direct about sexuality, but hey, our sexuality is a big part of who we are. And as we chatted about this the other day, we saw that God’s plan is not for us to fulfil our sexual needs in a casual relationship. Sex is an amazing gift from God … it was, after all, His idea … and so He knows that we are designed for physical intimacy to occur in an exclusive bond that we call marriage.

Not everyone has that need. Paul makes the point that he himself was single – I wish you all were as I am. Why? Because as a single person you can very easily go and serve the Lord wherever He may call. And that’s the key. Come back to it, God made me, God made you. He chose one life for me, he chose another life for you. We are all perfectly made to live the life that God’s chosen for us and that’s the life we should be living. Again, the Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you. This is my rule in all the churches.

I’ve been in churches where single people aren’t included in family barbecues, somehow they’re shunned. I’ve seen it, perhaps you’ve seen it too. And those of you who are single have no doubt experienced it. I’ve experienced it from the receiving end.

I was single and 36 years old, and often after church on Sundays, a few families would head off and go and have a BBQ together. And they wouldn’t think to invite me along – because I was single. I didn’t have a family at the time. That really hurts. Some churches have singles ministries – well, fair enough, but it’s almost as though we put singles over there in one corner and segregate them from families.

When you think about it, it’s pretty crazy, because if there’s one thing a single person needs, it’s other people around them. So I say to those who are single, if you are content being single, for goodness sake, stay single.

Singleness is not a disease. It’s something that God chooses for some people, and it’s a high calling indeed, as it was for the Apostle Paul. It can be an absolutely wonderful way to live your life. It can be a completely satisfying way to live your life. In fact the worst thing that a person can do who feels called to be single is to get married and I think that life would be just a nightmare.

But if you’re not content being single, then as Jesus says, the Apostle Paul says, for goodness sakes, get married so that you can be completely fulfilled. Do what God made you to do. Be who God made you to be. Live the life that the Lord has assigned, to which He has called you.

One of the most difficult things is the situation though where someone finds themselves single again, either through the death of a loved one, or through marriage breakdown and divorce. We don’t have time to go into the single–again situation fully today. But I promise that one day in the not too distant future we will do that.

But for the rest of us, we need to understand that those who were once married and now find themselves single again, they need our special love and care and understanding and support. People who have been divorced have typically been through a painful and bloody separation. It hurts terribly when this special, God–anointed relationship between husband and wife, which was meant to last a lifetime, is torn apart.

Is divorce a sin? Sure it is. But so are a lot of other things. And sin always hurts and special compassion is required to love someone through that.

Those who have lost their husband or wife too, they need our love and attention, particularly let me say, the widows, for whom God has a very special heart. Psalm 68, verse 5 said that the:

Father of the fatherless and the protector of the widows is God in his holy habitation.

So, if you know someone who is single again, for whatever reason, there is an opportunity … a great opportunity to show the love and the mercy and the compassion of God. Because the transition from being married to being single is a tough one, as anyone who’s ever been through it will tell you.

And to all you singles out there – be content as you have so much time to spend with the Lord, to draw close to the Lord, to experience His presence in a unique and beautiful way. Let Him be your all in all and cherish greatly your time with the Lord.

A THANKFUL HEART

You’ve had that experience right? Things are going along okay, but then something happens, at home or at work or maybe, it’s just something going on in your heart, and the contentment you once had … bingo! … it’s gone.

Have you ever stubbed your toe? You know, whack, you hit your big toe on a brick or something. Ouch! It hurts. The rest of your body is fine – your head’s good, your eyes, your ears, your mouth – tick. Arms and legs, fine. Torso, nothing damaged, nothing hurting there. It’s just this one little part of your body, your big toe that is throbbing. And so, despite the fact that every other part of you is fine, all your attention goes to your throbbing toe. And your sense of wellbeing has just evaporated in an instant. All the other good things that were going on around you are completely forgotten as you focus on your aching toe.

Well that’s how it often is with our sense of contentment. You look around – the hilltops and the valleys, the nice sunny happy bits, and the not so sunny and unhappy bits – and your attention has this habit of focussing, of fixating if you will, on the one thing that’s not going well in your life.

You’ve done it, I’ve done it, and it’s a really common thing that happens to us. If we weighed our whole life, all the blessings that God has given us, in the overall scheme of things we should be content, but you know … It’s like that throbbing toe, we just can’t get our minds off that one thing, and that one thing is robbing us of our contentment.

It might be a bit of tension at work, maybe you have a difficult boss, or a peer who’s been undermining you. Perhaps one of your children is going through a really difficult phase in their lives, or your wife or your husband isn’t turning out to be all that you’d hoped for. Or maybe it’s something really big, and you feel like it’s closing in on you, like you’re in a dungeon.

So, what’s the answer? How can you move from discontent to contentment? Well, I’d like to take you into a dungeon to show you how Paul and Silas did it.

They’d healed a slave girl who had a spirit of divination, and as a result, people weren’t too happy because the owners used to make money out of her, so…

The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Well, about midnight Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns to God, and all the other prisoners were listening to them. But suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains fell off.

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and he was about to kill himself, because he thought that all the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Don’t hurt yourself, we are all here.’

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside saying, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your whole household.’

They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And at the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; and then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. (Acts chapter 16, verses 22 to 34)

So, Paul and Silas had done the right thing, but a crowd had attacked them because no good deed ever goes unpunished, right? They are arrested, they are severely flogged, they are thrown into prison, into the innermost cell, with their feet in stocks.

There you go! That would be enough to rob you and me of our peace and contentment for the day wouldn’t it? I suspect that if we were in that prison cell, with our wounds aching, we’d be angry, or hurt, or afraid – asking God what the blazes was going on, even sometimes shaking our fists at the Lord. That might be a natural reaction. But Paul and Silas, around midnight we are told, were praying and singing hymns!

PRAYING AND SINGING HYMNS!!!! Can you believe that? They were worshipping God. They were living through this misery with thankful hearts … and the rest is history. God came and busted them out of prison – there is such power in praise and thankfulness.

When we rise above our circumstances, when we lift up our hearts and worship our Lord, He has the power to break us out of our prison of despair.

The rest was history. The jailer was saved, he cares for them, he feeds them, he washes their wounds, his whole household is saved and the next morning they are released.

The single, most unnatural act when we’re in that dungeon with our feet in stocks, is to praise God, to pray, to sing songs, to lift our hearts, to lift our eyes, to lift our hands heavenward and worship God. But that’s exactly what we need to do! Because that act of worship is music to God’s ears. That act of worship from the heart is how we connect with the Lord amidst our desperate circumstances. That act of worship is what so often triggers a powerful intervention from God, to change everything.

The number of times, in my life, when I’ve been sitting in my usual chair in my study, early in the morning, facing this issue or that issue, and I’ve just taken Him at His word and started to worship Him and started to give thanks and started to praise Him, even though that’s the last thing I felt like doing, the number of times He has come and broken me out of my prison cell of despair … well, I’ve just simply lost count.

God shows up every time. I get up and I walk away from those encounters with a sense of joy and peace and contentment, despite the circumstances. To me, it’s like a miracle. How does God do that? I’m really not sure, but He does. He does it again and again and again.

The way we move on from our discontentment is to worship God. It’s that simple. And if you don’t believe me – try it. It works.

It happened to Paul a second time, some years later. He was in a Roman prison, chained to his guard, awaiting his death sentence. Now this short passage from Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7 is going to be familiar to many, but there are two words that I bet you’ve glossed over, as I did for many years. Two words that change everything! Paul says:

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Did you pick which two words I was talking about? – ‘with thanksgiving’ is the key. How often do we go to the Lord with a problem and we grumble and we complain, as though He’s some call centre operator who can fix a problem with our bank accounts? I don’t know, but I imagine He must get sick of the stinking attitudes from us over and over again as we grumble and complain: ‘Oh God, what are You doing?’

His call is to go to Him with thanksgiving in our hearts, with thanksgiving on our lips, with a sense of wonder and anticipation at what He’s going to do, with a sense of expectation over the good things that He’s going to do. And like any good dad, when He sees one of His kids coming to Him with the right heart, with the right attitude – with an attitude of faith – He can’t help Himself.

In His great and mighty heart filled with boundless love for us, God can’t help Himself. He has to act, because He loves us. And just at the right time He’ll bust you out of your prison of despair and discontentment. He’ll break the shackles that hold you; He’ll set you free with joy and with peace and with contentment in your heart.

He’s such a wonderful God. He loves you so much. Go to Him with thanksgiving in your heart.

COMPLACENCY VERSUS CONTENTMENT

Well over these last few weeks we’ve been talking a lot … an awful lot … about being content. God’s plan is for us to be content. In His scheme of things, He places a very high value indeed on your contentment and mine. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6, the Apostle Paul writes this:

Of course there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.

Contentment is about not needing or wanting the next fix, whatever it is, that you happen to be addicted to. As we saw last week, girls (or guys as the case may be), gold and glory are three things that we can so easily become addicted to and ensnared by, and they’re just three of the things that we can get hooked on. There are plenty more.

Whenever we’re hooked on one particular sin … our Achilles heel if you will … we’re always going to be robbed of contentment. Contentedness is that thing that we feel when we’re happy to accept who we are (and who we aren’t), what we have (and what we don’t have), what we’re capable of doing (and what we’re not capable of doing). It’s independent of our circumstances and contentment is always accompanied by godliness. In fact there’s a cause and effect relationship: no godliness, no contentment.

That’s why sin always robs us of contentment.

But I don’t for one minute want you to think that I’m promoting complacency. These are two entirely different things. What I’m not talking about is becoming a spiritual couch potato and just sitting there and not striving to achieve anything and not engaging with the problems of life and not serving other people and not sacrificing to do the Lord’s work.

We’re so easily lulled into this false idea that contentment happens when everything in our little universe is going exactly as we please. Hah! Then we can relax. Then we can sit back. Then we can enjoy life, without stretching ourselves, without being challenged, without even beginning to think about what the Lord wants us to do with our lives; who He wants us to help; what the sacrifices are in following Him.

Jesus made it very clear, that if anyone wants to follow Him, then he or she should take up their cross and follow Him. In other words, be prepared to make sacrifices; be prepared for it to be hard and challenging and painful. And be prepared to give your whole life over to Him. Because if you try to save your life, you’re going to lose it. But if you are prepared to lose your life for His sake, Jesus sake, then you’ll save it.

That’s a paradox that applies to life and it’s a paradox that applies equally to this all too elusive (for some) thing called contentment. Because, the more we try and go the easy road, the comfortable road, the road that we’ve been told leads to contentment, the less contented we become.

The more we stuff ourselves with STUFF, the more bloated and listless and discontented we become. The more we try to use what we have to look after ourselves, the more elusive and fleeting contentment becomes. I come back to it again what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you.

At the end of the day, contentment only happens when we’re living the life that God’s called us to. The one He chose for us before time began. The one He handcrafted us, purpose built us to live. You and I know square pegs do not fit in round holes, yet all too many people are trying to remake themselves in the world’s image, when all along they were formed in God’s image.

You were made to be you. You were made to be good at what you’re good at, and lousy at what you’re lousy at. You were made specifically to live the life that God has planned for you. So go and be you, go and live that life.

The only one that’s going to work for you is the life that God has assigned to you. The one where you won’t find the pot of contentment at the end of the rainbow. No, that’s not how it works. Because if you live the life that God chose for you, He will give you His contentment on the journey. It’s just the way He does it.