Hi Reader,
Welcome to Living Contentment – your weekly nudge towards a life of Biblical contentment.
Here are today’s three contentment-related things for you to
read | do | pray
…now….on to this week’s newsletter…
READ THIS
noise, hurry, and crowds.
If he can keep us engaged in “muchness” and “manyness,” he will rest satisfied.
Imagining things from our Adversary’s perspective is usually restricted to reading C.S. Lewis’s short classic Screwtape Letters. However, it’s probably a good posture to take every so often.
If we assume our Enemy wants us engaged in noise, hurry, and crowds – we can see what (at least from Richard Foster’s perspective) we should be paying attention to.
Quiet
Slowness
Solitude
Foster wrote Celebration of Discipline in the ’70s, and Lewis was writing just after WWII. But this is at the same time both an incredibly current and ancient attitude. For Augustine – a North African Christian leader nearly 1800 years ago – solitude was a necessity. Not just a nice-to-have add-on. Many pastors – like John Mark Comer and others today are urging us to take a step back, unplug, and just be. Not do anything other than be in God’s presence.
We can’t find contentment in life if we are so busy, rushed, and drowning in noise that we can’t even feel, see, or hear what God has for us.
DO THIS
Just slow down.
Take the next 30 minutes.
No?
how about 10?
Five?
Take a step back.
Unplug.
Stop doing.
Rest in God’s presence.
No doing – just being.
If our enemy truly does want us to be swamped with noise, hurry, and crowds – get away from them. Even if just for a moment.
Breathe in – breathe out. Recognize that you sit in the presence of Almighty God.
PRAY THIS
God of Sabbath,
Lord of the Still Small Voice,
Father of gentleness.
Help us to respect our limitations.
Help us see when we need to slow down.
When we need to stop.
When we need to hit pause.
Help us hear your voice,
Feel your presence,
and know your love
in the quiet, stillness of our soul.
AMEN
Talk to you next Thursday!
~George
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