Being Content

When you are saved you do not have a new part to your life...you have a new life. God is not part of my life, He is my life. These words are really easy to say and think but they are often hard to live out.

If I truly believe that Christ is my life, then by default He should be Enough. He should be sufficient. A screamingly obvious sign of sin is that I am so often not content with Him. Outwardly I make all the right decisions. I go to school, then go to work, then go home. I go to hang out with other believers my age on Thursday nights and Sunday nights I hang out with kids from my church. Its the inward reaction to these decisions that shows my lack of contentedness (is that a word?)

If Christ is my life and if He is sufficient for me, then when I don't see my life working out the way I always though it would, it shouldn't sadden me, rather it should fill me with joy. God is working out my life in the way He wants me to go rather than the way I want to go. And I'm just saying right now that its a good thing he is. I don't always have very good judgment about the ways I think my life should go. Like I said, I know intellectually that where I am now is where I am supposed to be. I know in my head that I should be glorifying God for where He has me.

I've always been good at having the right intellectual reaction to life, but I've never given the emotional part much thought. I don't handle emotions very well so I usually just try to ignore them. Yeah, I know. Remember earlier when I said I don't always have the greatest judgment? Well I won't repeat myself then. I wasn't making the connection that its not enough to just outwardly obey the Lord, you have to want to obey the Lord.

And I do, I really do want to obey God. He is my life and I am very much aware that without Him I have nothing. Therefore I am beginning to strive to teach myself to be emotionally content rather than just outwardly content. I am starting in little steps, by humbling myself to friends and seeking forgiveness for any outward signs of non-contentedness.

This has been very much on my heart lately (to steal my dad's phrase) and I wanted to share it with you. Everyone has something in their lives that they wish was different. Sometimes several somethings. If we say that we love the Lord, but do not find our happiness solely in Him and what He has determined to give to us, then we are in sin. This was hard concept for me to get through my head because sin seemed like such a hard term. But at the end of a lot of wrestling I realized that God meant it when He wrote in His commandments, "Thou shalt have no other god before me."