To be or not to be
We had an interesting chapel on Friday. Two of my friends shared from their hearts on being content and why so often we as Christians are discontent. Boiled down, what they had to say was that every time we get our eyes off God and start worrying about or desiring material things (anything not related directly to God including ministries and programs) we begin to be discontent. Over the past couple of weeks I have heard no fewer than 25 sermons/people referring to this topic. Everyone wants to know why they feel so dissatisfied in their life.
Here is my take. I believe that we are created with something missing (some have referred to this as a God-sized hole; but I don't necessarily agree with that analogy since Christians are often the most dissatisfied people I know). That something is the subconscious knowledge of our loss of perfection that happend when Adam sinned. Due to this loss of perfection we spend our whole life trying to regain what we instinctively knowis missing. Christians, then, feel this dissatisfaction even more since we have received Jesus and the Holy Spirit and with them have received a greater understanding of the "something more" concept. If we accept that there is something more to life than what is traditionally accepted this discontent is actually a good thing since it spurs us on to get closer to God and gain a greater understanding of what is desired/required of us. So I would disagree with my friends that we should be content with our salvation and that our discontent is actually a result of our "carnality". [Though in some cases I am sure that this could be true. The difference is how we react to the content/discontent quandry].
For myself there is more a danger in being content than in not. There is a very thin line between contentment and complacency. And many times people don't even realize when they have crossed that line. Complacency is selfish. It is uncritical self-satisfaction with oneself or one's achievments. That is why contentment is so tricky. As soon as you are content with where you are you have become complacent. By its very nature, complacency tends to remain hidden since the human psyche is adept at rationalizing actions and though processes. Rationalizing complacency as contentment is one of the easiest things to do.
Another thing is that God did not call us to be content. In fact, He specifically rebukes those who are unwilling to change or who have come to a place of "lukewarmness" in their lives. The life of Christian was never meant to be easy. Jesus tells us that we will be persecuted and suffer hardships and problems. He even implys that our life will be much harder than if we had not decided to follow Him. Neither contentment nor complacency can survive in that sort of environment. True we can be content in the fact that we are God's children and have nothing to worry about; but does it ever end at just that? Soon we get content with where our relationship is with Him; then it progresses to being satisfied to just attend church; pretty soon we are content to just do the minimum we can in order to not feel guilty about our faith. On the flip side is the example of the saints and heroes of the Bible. The ones we wish to patterns our lives after (Abraham, Moses, David, the Judges, etc.) were in a constant transition, never satisfied with their relationship with God and always striving to improve that relationship. When they stopped their struggles and became "content" was when they began to fall.
I think that's all for now. I really went at that more vigorously than I originally intended but it's something that really bothers me when I hear it preached from the pulpit.
Here is my take. I believe that we are created with something missing (some have referred to this as a God-sized hole; but I don't necessarily agree with that analogy since Christians are often the most dissatisfied people I know). That something is the subconscious knowledge of our loss of perfection that happend when Adam sinned. Due to this loss of perfection we spend our whole life trying to regain what we instinctively knowis missing. Christians, then, feel this dissatisfaction even more since we have received Jesus and the Holy Spirit and with them have received a greater understanding of the "something more" concept. If we accept that there is something more to life than what is traditionally accepted this discontent is actually a good thing since it spurs us on to get closer to God and gain a greater understanding of what is desired/required of us. So I would disagree with my friends that we should be content with our salvation and that our discontent is actually a result of our "carnality". [Though in some cases I am sure that this could be true. The difference is how we react to the content/discontent quandry].
For myself there is more a danger in being content than in not. There is a very thin line between contentment and complacency. And many times people don't even realize when they have crossed that line. Complacency is selfish. It is uncritical self-satisfaction with oneself or one's achievments. That is why contentment is so tricky. As soon as you are content with where you are you have become complacent. By its very nature, complacency tends to remain hidden since the human psyche is adept at rationalizing actions and though processes. Rationalizing complacency as contentment is one of the easiest things to do.
Another thing is that God did not call us to be content. In fact, He specifically rebukes those who are unwilling to change or who have come to a place of "lukewarmness" in their lives. The life of Christian was never meant to be easy. Jesus tells us that we will be persecuted and suffer hardships and problems. He even implys that our life will be much harder than if we had not decided to follow Him. Neither contentment nor complacency can survive in that sort of environment. True we can be content in the fact that we are God's children and have nothing to worry about; but does it ever end at just that? Soon we get content with where our relationship is with Him; then it progresses to being satisfied to just attend church; pretty soon we are content to just do the minimum we can in order to not feel guilty about our faith. On the flip side is the example of the saints and heroes of the Bible. The ones we wish to patterns our lives after (Abraham, Moses, David, the Judges, etc.) were in a constant transition, never satisfied with their relationship with God and always striving to improve that relationship. When they stopped their struggles and became "content" was when they began to fall.
I think that's all for now. I really went at that more vigorously than I originally intended but it's something that really bothers me when I hear it preached from the pulpit.
posted by druid_of_christ | 12:47
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