Be content with what you have

It's incredibly easy to not be content with what we have. I can easily look to things in my life that I'm unsatisfied with, and point to them and feel like I have reason to complain. I have a tendency to do so quite often. What I don't do very often is look at what God has already given me and be thankful to God for his many blessings. Anything from redeeming me from my sin to giving me a place to live and food to eat--all of these are blessings I've done nothing to merit and that I don't deserve. How silly I must sound when I am discontent.

I've sat here most of the afternoon thinking about things I lack. What a travesty and what a shame! That isn't being grateful to God for what He's given, by any stretch of the imagination. But I want to learn to be content with what I've had, and trust that the rest will come if needed, or that I will learn to be content if not. There are a lot of things that I want that I don't need, and it seems really silly to complain about such imagined lackings, not because there are babies starving in Africa, but because God has given me so much else that I'm already ungrateful for and I already squander.

What a wretched heart that shows. The solution, of course, is found in the Cross of Christ, but I'm too inclined to forget that while I'm peering toward heaven in self-pitiful agony. And yet even while I am an ungrateful and squandering little wretch, God still finds it pleasing to Him to keep blessing me more and more and more. That is another of the great mysteries of His good pleasure...

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen."

Luke