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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READ THIS

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?

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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

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Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

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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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READ THIS

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.

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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?

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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

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Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

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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READ THIS

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.

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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.”

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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

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Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

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….

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

~George

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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

READ THIS

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

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.

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

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Talk to you next Thursday!

~George

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