Don’t leave them blind – Spreading Contentment #4

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

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Sometimes we want to help others, but we mess up. We desire to see them find more contentment, but we point them the other direction.

As followers of Jesus, I think sometimes we do this when we mistake the good for the great. When we get band-aids instead of surgery.

If we follow Jesus, and believe that he is the only true way to contentment, then not sharing that with others is not doing them any good. Well, at least not the most good.

The video below (from Harris Creek Baptist Church) helps drive home the idea:

Perhaps we think that by advising someone on how to deal with their difficult marriage, we’re helping them. And perhaps we are.

Maybe our kind words are helpful.

But – if someone does not know the source of ultimate contentment, we are just helping lead a blind person, not taking off their blindfold.

After all, if we’re really going to help people find contentment, let’s actually do the thing that can bring them the most contentment.

DO THIS

Who in your life have you been trying to help through struggles?

If you are a believer and they are not, have you at least shared with them – that when you had your blindfold taken off, things got better?

Have you told them about how removing that blindfold is a possibility?

Of course, you don’t stop giving other kinds of help, advice, kindness – but leading them blind is not as impactful as letting them know their blindfold can be taken off.

PRAY THIS

Great healer,
you have given me spiritual sight,
removed my blindness,
give me courage and wisdom to share that with others.
Use me to point others to you,
the one true source of real contentment.

Amen

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

the right combination – Spreading Contentment #3

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

Today is the third in a series looking at how we can help others find contentment.

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A week ago, when our dorm girls came back from break, we tried to make the dorm look extra inviting. We hung some banners, put encouraging notes on their desks, and the kids picked flowers from the yard for our table.

When they put the cut flowers in the glass jars, they neglected to put any water in the vases – and the life expectancy of the plants played out as one would imagine

Water is simply hydrogen and oxygen – combined as two parts to one – et viola. I couldn’t help but think as I looked at those jars that there was plenty of both H and O inside. They’re just not combined properly. So while there is both present, they have no impact on giving the flowers what they need. If anything, the hydrogen and oxygen present are actually speeding up the flower’s demise.

Sometimes it’s the specific combination, the way things are put together, that makes the difference.

Perhaps someone knows that God is in control, but the story of your personal experience makes it click for them.

Maybe they already believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding them, but you point them to a passage that makes it come alive.

Possibly, they know Jesus is with them and for them, but your physical presence makes it feel real again.

Whatever the case, don’t dismiss the role you can play in other people’s lives without having to invent something new they have never heard.

Many times we need people to be there, to remind us, to rephrase something, to point us back to somewhere, or just to be the in-person reality of something we believe.

You can be that combination for someone else. You can help others find living contentment by helping bring together the spiritual hydrogen and oxygen that’s already present, but just not combined in a way that’s as helpful as possible.

DO THIS

Who do you know – right now – that’s going through something tough?
A rough time, a loss, a struggle?

Get in touch – even if you don’t think you have anything extraordinary to share.

You don’t need a solution for their problem – you might just need to be there to help them remember something they already know.
Maybe your presence – maybe your reaching out – is all they need right now.

PRAY THIS

Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
as you are a God in relationship,
you are a God of relationships.
Help us to see those around us who need someone.
Give us words to say.
When words fail, may we be your presense for them.
When presence is not possible, convict us to pray.
Amen

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Scars, not wounds. – Spreading Contentment #2

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

This is our second week looking at the impact we can have on the contentment of others

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I have a faint scar in the middle of my forehead. I got when 7-year-old me chased my older sister through our kitchen and went head first into the corner separating the hallway from the living room. The brown/green/beige linoleum was slippery on my socks, and I’m not sure what happened but I hit my head. It split open, blood started coming out, and they patched it up in the emergency room. I remember the doctor talking about how they had tape for this kind of thing now, this brand new technology (this was like 1981) that would leave less visible scaring than traditional sutures. When we moved from that house, I could measure how much i had grown from my current forehead height, down to the forehead shaped dent in the wall.

When i tell that story, i am relating to you something that happened to me, where I now have evidence of healing – a scar.

Places where we still need to experience healing, and still hurt – are not scars, they’re wounds. If I started telling you about that injury that evening, I think i would have a very different story to tell.

I think sometimes the idea of ‘sharing our scars’ can romanticise injury. Not all scars will lead to complete healing, and some things will be too painful to ever speak of again. Scars – after all- are not what our bodies were originally supposed to look like. A 1998 paper in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology that tried to finally understand scar tissue found our bodies basically say, “this isn’t the ideal way to fix it, but it’s the best way to fix it quickly.” Like having a flat tire in the middle of the night and all you have is one of those dumb, small temp-spare tires. It’s not ideal, but it’s sure better than nothing. So a scar is a sign that you have repaired damage, to make it better than the broken state, but not back to the same as it was. It’s something that shows we’ve been through damage, been through trauma, been through injury, but we’re back. Not exactly the same as before, but we’re back.

Some point out that scar tissue is actually stronger than normal skin. The way a wound heals over means you are less likely to get that exact same injury before, because now your body has built up and is ready for it. So in some ways the scars of life we carry, also protect us.

But this only really is true for scars. The places where healing has taken place, not our open wounds. So as we try to help others, to help them find contentment, let’s remember to share scars, not wounds.

We can help others find contentment by letting them know they’re not the only one with that scar. Maybe we help them find hope by letting them know their current wound will eventually be a scar. Maybe we point them to the Great Physician who gave us healing, and allowed us to come back from our past injuries.

Either way – let’s try to encourage each other- by being honest about our own scars.

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One recent study by a psychologist about the mental and emotional impact of physical scars showed that the most important factor is the narrative around a scar – not the scar itself. If you have a huge scar across your face, but it was relieved when your father dragged you from a burning car, saving your life, it’s not such a ‘bad scar.’ However, a scar that was relieved when someone you thought you could trust lashed out at you in anger – will never have a good story.

What stories do you tell yourself, and others, about the emotional, spiritual, mental scars you carry?

Think about one way that you have been hurt – and then recovered. You know have that scar. Do you focus on the bad situation that caused the scar, or dwell on the healing that followed?

PRAY THIS

God of all healing,
thank you for bringing us out of our wounds
thank you for bringing us to healing and wholeness.
Help us to give testimony to your goodness,
through the way we share our scars.
Help us to point back to you the Great Healer

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Blind Helping the Blind – Spreading Contentment #1

Blind helping the blind

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

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There was no newsletter last week as we took some time off as a family. One of the things that occurred to me over this past week was how much of an impact we can have on each other. How much we can help guide, nurture, encourage, enable, ….. each other’s contentment.

Of course, we can’t make anyone else content, nor can we make them discontent. We’ve talked lots about how our contentment is not based on our external factors -and that involves the people around us.

But….we do have influence.

We can impact people for good or not. We can help encourage people to be content, or discontent. We can model contentment. We can help others see what they have. There is actually a lot we can do.

So while it can never be the blind leading the blind – there is a sense that we as flawed humans, can help other flawed humans. We don’t want to be the leader, figuring out where to go. But we can point them in the right direction.

At least we can be the blind, helping the other blind.

DO THIS

Who has made a significant impact on your contentment?
Why?
What did they do? What did they not do?
Who has influenced how you think of contentment?
How was their way of thinking different from what you started with?

PRAY THIS

Lord,
you put us in community,
in relationships,
all part of your body.
If one part suffers we all suffer,
so guide us to help others.
Use us in the lives of those around us.
We don’t always have the answers,
but we can always point people in your direction.
Give us humility, and boldness – in the right balance.
Amen

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Content in the face of impending doom

Impending Doom – Maundy Thursday

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

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Church traditions that follow a more liturgical calender recognize today as Maundy Thursday (not “Monday Thursday” as I thought until I was way too old to admit). The day we commemorate that Passover Meal Jesus shared with his disciples. The Last Supper.

The meal where he announced he would be betrayed. The one just before Peter denied even knowing him. Just before his own turn him over. The one before his own people turned him over to the Roman occupying force for public execution.

The days that lead up to Easter are hard for us to read in many ways. It’s hard for us to put ourselves in the disciples’ place, as we have the benefit of knowing how Easter Sunday turns out. We understand the whole ‘suffering servant IS the Reigning King’ in a way that the paradox would have been almost incomprehensible to a first century Jew.

I almost never use Jesus himself as an example of a contented life – because in someways it seems too easy, and too hard. It’s too easy of an example to hold up as he was perfectly content at all times (if we assume not being content is a sinful state that comes from a lack of trust) It’s too hard in other ways because saying “act like the diving, perfect, incarnate God” feels overwhelming.

But the stories that emerge here in Holy Week – at least for me – make Jesus feel at leat more approachable. More relatable. He’s betrayed by those he trusted. He’s double-crossed by those he’s helped. He’s misunderstood. It seems like he really is trying to get his followers to understand something they just can’t.

And then there is the events later that evening in Garden where he is so traumatically stressed that he sweats blood. Where he begs his Heavenly Father to see if there is some other, less painful way forward. But there isn’t, so he accepts things, and bravely moves on.

I think he is able to move forward with confidence – because of his faith and trust in His Father. He KNOWS that what God has planned is the best way forward. That attidude is what truly gives contentment. You can be content with your current circumstances if you believe that they are what God has allowed to happen. That God has his reasons- even if we don’t konw them or understand them.

“Not my will but your will be done.”

Really what stronger statement of contentment can be made? Being willing to follow God – even when it seems hard – because you have confidence in his goodness, and his power.

Jesus here at the end of Holy Week is about to face the most cruel, unwarranted, violent torturous death. And he knows it. Yet his faith in his Father allows him to say “not my will….but your’s”

May that be our prayer – our cry – when we are in times of distress as well.

DO THIS

What problem is currently facing you – that feels almost unsurmountable?

Can you pray – with honesty and sincerity – “God – I don’l like this, I don’t understand it. But if this is your will….may it be so.”

PRAY THIS

God of power,
God of goodness,
God of Love.
You said you are in control,
and you tell me you are good.
But I don’t always feel it.
I can’t always believe it.
Yet Lord, I do believe,
help my unbelief.
In those things right now that I just can’t face,
I give them over to you.
Not my will, but yours be done.

Amen

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Mountain Top Experiences

Mountain Top Experiences

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

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Many of us know what it’s like to have ‘mountain-top experiences’ with God. Some moment when we feel especially close to God, and we realise his closeness to us. Perhaps it’s a weekend away, a retreat/conference, or just a change of scenery. For me last week it was a literal mountain top. I helped lead a group of 12th grade kids from RVA to the summit of Mt Kenya. Just shy of 5,000m in the sky, it’s a pretty serious hike.

We were led by a guide named Jeffery, who said he’s summited Mt Kenya over 900 times. Nine-hundred times! He wore old running shoes, carried a backpack with a broken waist strap, and from appearance was just an average thin, middle-aged guy. But he knows that mountain. Almost a thousand times he’s climbed it. Taking countless numbers of people, in good weather and bad, rainy season and snow, picture perfect climbs, and those that end in tragedy.

I realised a few things on that hike.

You follow the guy who knows where he’s going. There were many times when it looked like the path Jefery was taking was not the fastest, easiest, or safest route. But….I’ve never been there before, and he knows the trail like the back of his hand. What may look quick, safe, easy from one side – may not be. You have to follow the guide.

Some things are harder than they look. At 5000m above sea level, the air is pretty thin and the oxygen suspiciously absent. When the guide says take a break here, but it doesn’t look like it’s needed – you still listen.

My job was not to know where to go, or to plan the route. My job was to follow and help others to follow. If I forget my role, I not only don’t do it well, but I can get in the way of others.

DO THIS

The application of these mountain-guide lessons feels almost too easy. But I encourage you to think about these things:
Where in your life right now are you tempted to jump ahead and figure things out on your own?
What things seem easy (or hard) and may not be what you think they are? When do you think your job is to figure out your life direction – rather than following Christ?

These questions are not trivial. Think about them and what they mean to you right now, wherever you are in your walk with God at this point.

PRAY THIS

God of all creation,
you formed the mountains with only your words,
mountains so great and majestic they strike us with awe.
Yet you care for each of us, our days, hours, moments.
Give us faith to trust you with the direction of our lifes.
Give me the ability to follow you even when it looks hard.
Give me strength to follow when I don’t understand.
Thank you for being the perfect guide through this life.
Even when I don’t know exactly where you’re going,
Give me faith to follow you.
Amen

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Surrender Guest Post #3 – the long game

Hi Reader, welcome back to Living Contentment Weekly.

This week is our third installment from my friend Greg Sund on SURRENDER.

If you haven’t grabed a free copy of his e-book ( paperback here) – give it a try for a much deeper dive into true Surrender.

So here’s Greg with this week’s view of Contentment through the lens of Surrender….

READ THIS:

Next year I will turn 50 (Lord willing). As I have reflected on my life so far, it occurs to me that growing older is a funny thing (for those who have not yet tried it). As you age, you come to learn lessons about yourself and about God that cannot be learned except over many years. Three lessons that I have learned (or perhaps am still in the process of learning) are as follows:

  1. Learning the lessons that God is trying to teach me about myself and about Himself takes time and intention. As my wife often reminds me “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates). We can only grow in wisdom through taking time to reflect and to dialogue with the Lord.
  2. What I once thought of as good and worthy goals for my life can sometimes turn into idols. With much time I have learned that I am more sinful than I once thought I was and that the “good” goals that I often pursue can sometimes become an object of worship, that which dominates my thoughts and my affections.
  3. My weaknesses, which have frustrated me for years, are often (and perhaps always) God’s good gift, to remind me of my limitations and to push me toward a greater dependence on Him.

In order to accept and embrace these lessons, a part of me has had to die (or perhaps is still in the process of dying). To be changed by this wisdom, I need to lay down and surrender parts of me and this can be a painful process. But finally, I have learned that on a good day, when I can embrace these lessons, and quiet my soul and recognize and remember what the Lord has done and is continuing to do to me and through me, I realize a peace and a deep contentment that I have never known before. I don’t know how many more years I will have on this earth, but I know that the Lord is at work in and through me, not as in a sprint, but as in a marathon. I am being “slow cooked” and that is a good thing, because the chef is a good chef and a good God.

DO THIS:

Take an hour this week to sit in silence and reflect on your life. Ask God what He has been trying to teach over many years. Then thank Him for His loving kindness and patience to you.

PRAY THIS:

Father, thank You for your steadfast kindness and faithfulness to me over many years. Thank you for the process of sanctification, that You do not save us and then leave us unchanged, but You transform us from one degree of glory to another. Thank You for Your perfect wisdom. Help me to take the time to reflect on the lessons You are trying to teach me. You are a good good God. May my life be a living sacrifice to You.

Another great insight from Greg….Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Keep Surrendering… – Living Contentment Weekly

Hi Reader,

Welcome to the SECOND special edition of Living Contentment Weekly. Once again, Greg Sund is sharing on surrender and contentment. (link to a free copy of his book at the bottom of this email) This week he’s comeing to us from rural Uganda.

So – again – here’s Greg with his views on surrender and contetnment.

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This week I am in Uganda, teaching a course on management of obstetric emergencies. It is not everyday that I get to meet someone who truly inspires me, but this week I had that privilege.

I have met a woman named Dr. (Sister) Priscilla. She is a catholic nun and is also an obstetrician gynecologist. I had heard of her in 2020, when she won the well known (among medical missionaries) L’Chaim prize, a $500,000 grant for which she applied to build and equip a rural “center of excellence” for obstetric care in a rural town in Uganda.

When you meet someone like this, you feel like you have met an extension of Christ. She has sacrificed her entire life in obedience to God. She is talented, fiercely intelligent and strikingly humble. As an OB/GYN she could be practicing for wealthy private clients in Kampala, earning a large salary and living a life of comfort.

Instead, she has surrendered her life to Christ, and in obedience to Him has sacrificed this “good life” in exchange for a cross that she bears daily, living under a vow of poverty and working tirelessly for the women of rural Uganda, to show them the love of Jesus. Not gritting her teeth and suffering – but truly content in what God has called her to.

After this 2 week course, I don’t know if I will ever see her again on this side of heaven, but I know that I will never forget her because in her I have seen the face of Christ.

DO THIS

Who have you met who has truly inspired you in your faith?

What was different about this person?
What could you sacrifice that would really cost you something? Is it your house, your social status, your hobbies?
How would you respond if Jesus spoke to you today and asked you to sacrifice this one thing so that He might fulfill His purpose for you?

Do you think you would still be content?
Do you think you could surrender – and be more content?

PRAY THIS

Father, we thank you for the lives you have utterly and completely transformed to show us the wonder and glory and compassion of who You are. Thank you for those saints that we have crossed paths with, or perhaps that we live and work with each day, who have truly surrendered their lives to You, with the knowledge that You alone are worthy and that one day, they will get the ultimate joy of seeing You face to face. Transform us as well, for Your purposes, for our good and for Your glory. Amen.

Remember – if you want a copy of Greg’s book:
The Journey to Surrender: Not Giving Up on Giving Up.

..CLICK HERE for a free ebook

…or if you’d like a paperback version – they’re on Amazon here.

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Surrender…. Living Contentment Weekly

Surrender

Hi Reader,

Welcome to this week’s special guest letter from my good friend Greg Sund.

Greg his wife Stephanie have been great friends of ours since we first landed in Africa 8 years ago – and I can say my life is better for having him in it.

Today – he is sharing the Something to: read | do | pray – but also a free copy of his book: The Journey to Surrender: Not Giving Up on Giving Up.

CLICK HERE for a free copy of the ebook

So….here’s Greg….

READ THIS

The vast majority of Americans think much too highly of themselves. (At least, this is true of me). It occurs to me that this may not be a popular statement. We are inundated daily with words of affirmation that encourage this thinking. “You deserve better,” “You are a good person,” “He is lucky to have you.” We hear it from our friends, our family, our co-workers, advertisements, and self-help books. We are told we’re basically good people, with a smattering of bad people thrown in the mix, but overall, we’re good.

Sadly, this cultural movement runs counter to what we as followers of Jesus Christ are called to. Surrender to God (or anyone else) is not possible without a posture of humility. Humility in scripture is a massively important theme. It is so important because without humility, we will never allow ourselves to be submitted to the “Lordship” of Jesus Christ. But it is also important because scripture exhorts us to this posture for a reason, and that reason is the humility of Jesus.

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he HUMBLED himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:3-8, emphasis added).

Jesus Christ took on a posture of humility to save you and me. He sacrificed in a deeply painful way, giving up His royal seat next to His Father in heaven, and assuming a seat on a dirt floor next to sinners and tax collectors. This should move us to a posture of humility. This should move us to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

DO THIS

Ask yourself if, in your area of work wherever that may be, is humility considered an asset or a liability?

When you honestly look into your heart, what specific areas of pride have taken root?

What do you remain proud of: your reputation, intelligence, ability to do your job, how well you parent, what a good friend / Christian / neighbor you are?

Spend a few moments asking God to show you where these pockets of pride may be hiding and ask Him how you should begin to deal with them.

PRAY THIS

Father, you have graciously taught us that we are to lay down our lives for the sake of others and for the sake of the Gospel.
And you have shown us the massive importance of humility in the life and death of Your Son Jesus.
Open the eyes of our hearts to see how pride may be corrupting us and distancing us from You and Your call upon our lives.
Help us to repent of these prideful tendencies and show us a better way, the way of Jesus, who humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross.
Forgive us O Lord, and transform us to be more and more like Our Savior.
AMEN

Once again….CLICK HERE for a free ebook

…or if you’d like a paperback version – they’re on Amazon here.

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

Many Bad Works – One Good Fruit – Living Contentment Weekly

Many Works – One Fruit

Hi Reader,

Welcome to Living Contentment Weekly. Here are your three contentment-related thoughts for today. Something for you to: read | do | pray

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Most of us are familiar with the passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control. – Gal 5:22-23

Earlier in the chapter Paul speaks of ‘the works of the sinful self’ and the list includes sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. (Gal 5:19-21)

It’s been pointed out to me before, how Paul speaks of works (plural) but fruit (singular). Highlighting that all those characteristics are outpourings of the working of the same Spirit.

There is so much to learn here around contentment from not relying on our works but the fruit of the spirit who works in us to remembering what a contented life looks like

I’ve been going through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship and yesterday I came across a section that really stood out to me.

Works are done by human hands, fruit thrusts upward and grows all unbeknown to the tree which bears it. Works are dead, fruit is alive, and bears the seed which will bring forth more fruit. Works can subsist on their own, fruit cannot exist apart from the tree. Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only he can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of him on whom their life depends. There is no room for boasting here, but only for an ever more intimate union with him. The saints are unconscious of the fruit they bear.

DO THIS

The above passage is so rich, I invite you to dive into it, and really look at what it means.

Works :

  • are done by human hands
  • are dead
  • can remain on their own
  • are a result of will

Fruit:

  • grows not by the will of the tree
  • is alive – and bears seed for more fruit
  • cannot exist apart from the tree
  • miraculous, created – the result of growth

What in your life is evidence of the Fruit of the Spirit working in you? What things are works – that maybe you’re hoping will become fruit – if not just signs of it?

What do those answers mean about your connection to the vine?

PRAY THIS

God of abondance,
who wishes to produce good fruit in my life.
Sprit of God, living in my heart,
causing my heart to become more like you.
Bring about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, & self-control.
Not because I want to, or because I can.
But because I can’t – and I need you to.
Amen

Talk to you next Thursday!

~George