Why is it so hard to find contentment, to be fully present in my current reality with nothing but gratitude in my heart?
Why, when God has given me everything and more, do I still long for something else, for what’s next? As if He is withholding something from me, as if I am not yet complete in Him in this very moment?
No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
Psalm 84:11
I suppose it’s our miserable human condition– to always want more. To overlook everything good and perfect and right and see only what is lacking. To live in scarcity instead of abundance.
A year ago I couldn’t have fathomed the blessings that God has poured out on me. How generous and loving He’s been, how perfect His timing has been in my life. And yet, instead of appreciating those blessings and the Blesser Himself, I am focusing on what I still lack or what else I want– like a spoiled child.
Maybe the things of this world were never meant to satisfy us like He can. Maybe in all our searching and seeking and hoping for certain outcomes, we are turning away from the One who has already given us the best outcome of all.
I don’t want to live in this self-created hell of misplaced desire anymore. Desire for money, for a forever home, for perfect health. My desires enslave me; they hold me captive. I wake in the morning and think not of God but rather scheme about how I can obtain them. How did I fall so far?
But He understands. He doesn’t condemn. He created me– he knows I’m broken, that I can never love and desire Him as He deserves to be loved and desired. And He urges me to come home, to make Him my one true desire. He reminds me that He will take care of everything I want and need when I seek Him first.
And He wants to transform my desires. To help me see that the things I desire aren’t even worth desiring at all– in the end all is in Him. These temporary, worldly pleasures will not last. Health will not last. A job will not last. A home will not last. When I seek after these things and make them idols in my heart, I am replacing the One who can fulfill me with things that will never fully satisfy.
I want to be one who is so engulfed in her relationship with Christ that I can’t even see or think of anything else. To be so fully absorbed by Him that all my cares and worries, desires and temptations, hopes and dreams just melt away and I am completely content. Completely free to let Him bend me to His will and desires for me.
I don’t need to seek after my own gain anymore– there is One who has already given me everything.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:33
rhythms of grace 