COMPARED TO WHAT?

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, to which God has called him.  
-- 1 Corinthians 7:17

Contentment is  a powerful thing. Comparison drains vitality like juice from a squeezed lemon.

Life's circumstances, trials, fears and pains do their best to at times to deflate us. And when we add the squeeze of comparison we can truly feel defeated and despondent.

Philippians 4:13 is one of the more quoted verses in Christendom:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 

Often, it is used in ways that can distort the meaning to be self-serving. When understood in context, however, we see that Paul makes a powerful statement about contentment. He writes of understanding the secret of being content no matter the circumstances.

At the same time we must never confuse contentment with complacency. Paul, who wrote of this contentment also wrote:

Not that I have already obtained this... one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind 

and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal... 

of the upward call of God.  -- Philippians 3:12-14

That is not the mantra of a complacent man! But note the goal - it is not one of personal aggrandizement or glory. Nor is it one of comparison. Paul's driving passion was to know both the God who called and redeemed him, and to grow in the personal purpose for which this God transformed him.

Comparison will drain us... Complacency will anesthetize us... Contentment will empower us.

And our contentment is in Christ.


God, let me find my place in you...

For now...
D