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I turned 36 this year and I think I'm having my mid-life crisis. I'm learning to rollerblade and {GASP} after ten years I've switched my work correspondence from Times New Roman to Arial.

I've heard my husband tell about the trail of events the Lord allowed that led me to Him, which includes Mike's knee blowing out (100% dislocation, nothing holding it together but skin).

I really got to know the group of Christian women in the church at Hammond due to them helping us/me when Mike was hospitalized.

That's an aspect of contentment, as seekr alluded to... getting through the trial, then expectantly looking toward the blessings that will come out of it all.

Mike says that as he looks at his Christian wife, the knee doesn't hurt so much any more.

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (nerdneh @ June 03 2002,11:06)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Which reminds me I am in my second mid-life crisis, something for all of you to look forward to. Now I worry about my grand-children repeating the same dumb mistakes I made. At least none of them have joined the MarineCorps yet![/quote]
Bob, I was wondering if you really believe your joining the Marine Corps was a dumb mistake?  I have the same thoughts about my grandchildren.

I like your thoughts on contentment.

Bill

As I get older, I think I may be beginning to understand how contentment comes.  This has eluded me for years and years.  But now, as I am about to turn forty, I see:

I haven't accomplished anything I hoped or intended to.

Few of those I grew up with are where they wished to be.  Many have slipped into messes I would never have believed.  Quite a few are gone now--some by their own hand.  

I'm not even sure how to take the next step in my life.

And yet for the first time in years, a peace is settling on me.  I think I am finally understanding that I can trust God--no matter what.  I haven't given up on my ambitions.  I still believe the quote I've been using at the bottom of my messages for the past week.  I still believe I have much to accomplish.

Yet I have begin to understand that what I want to accomplish may not be what God wants to accomplish.  I may not see anything in my life that resembles success, but I am in God's hand--and he has a plan for me.  I may struggle, mess up, fool around, completely get off track--yet he still holds me.  I still trust in Him.

And He still can use me, in spite of myself.  As a matter of fact, as I recognize my failures and my complete inability to plan my own life, He gains the power to take over and do with me what He wants.

And I must realize that what He wants is more important than what I want.

And I think that when this happens, that leads to contentment.

Do you think maybe people trip over the words when their personal definitions are 'off'?

Do they expect "contentment" to equal "happiness" (the way a leaping game show contestant is happy...), or "complacency" (as in, squishily accepting the status quo...)?

Does misdefinition make for a lot of throwing oneself against bars that don't have to be there?

Does contentment without Godliness equal smugness?

I read in a Kurt Vonnegot Jr. novel once (not sure if it is original to him):
"Happiness is not having what you want...but wanting what you have."
I think that goes for contentment also.

Richard

But more on a serious note about contentment--if i hadn't had such great loss, I would have lost out on what was most important. I love what i have gleaned from the pain and disappointment in life. How can we see suffering and have compassion without going through it ourselves? I feel even beyond contentment (though, of course at times the flesh still cries out, as it should) but that joy comes out of the hard things in life. The struggles really do produce so much in us. Going through them, though is hurtful, but now I KNOW to wait for the outcome because of what it will bring.

seekr

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]I read in a Kurt Vonnegot Jr. novel once (not sure if it is original to him):
"Happiness is not having what you want...but wanting what you have."
I think that goes for contentment also.[/quote]
Richard -- just to let you know, several "quotation" sites online attribute that quote to Rabbi Hyman Schachtel.

To all -- I was thinking that maybe contentment is the same as joy, or at least a part of it ... but then I got to thinking some more, and I'm not so sure about that ... I think that joy is something that's there in us, deep down, a gift from God,  that "passes understanding" and is there no matter what because it doesn't depend on circumstances. I can be sad but still joyful.  When it comes to contentment ... I don't know ... I wonder if we can ever be truly "content" in this life.  Hopefully I grow more and more content in trusting God, but not with life in general or myself in particular, because then why would I even want to grow then? As for "happiness," sometimes I think it's way overrated. At least the sun-shiney, always smiling, "life is peacy," la-dee-da kind is.

Just thinking out loud.
- Barb

Barb1957,
Thanks! I suspected the original quote came from someone who knew a little more about God than Mr. Vonnegot.
Could you give me links to some of those quotations sites you know of?  I have lots of quotes I like, but usually misquote them and often attribute them to the wrong person.

Thanks again,

Richard (1959)

Janine, so you were in Hammond at one time? I preached the opening Sunday sermon when they opened their new building, WAAAY BACK.

Which reminds me I am in my second mid-life crisis, something for all of you to look forward to. Now I worry about my grand-children repeating the same dumb mistakes I made. At least none of them have joined the MarineCorps yet!

On contentment, it is a gift of God. Have you read Ecclesiastes lately? This is one of those books where you have to understand everything before you can understand anything. Notice how he goes under the waters of despair and then surfaces into the light every now and then. When he does surface, and thinks about the secret of contentment, it is to reflect that God gives it.

To be content, we must be open to the God who loves to give. This is not a stupid pious saying, it is a truth realized after many years in which misery and cynicism often seemed viable choices.

Some interesting perspectives.  My original thoughts were almost stream of consciousness.  Just some things I'd been thinking about lately, with a new twist because I had recently found out about trouble that people I had thought were doing well had got themselves into.  

More and more I am deciding there's nothing to do but trust God and go on.

Bill, joining the USMC was not a dumb mistake for me. I needed it at the time. It would have been a dumb mistake for my kids because they would have had to abandon some good situations God had blessed them with.

Well said, Marc.  When I'm having one of my "mid-life crisis" days, my wife gently reminds me that I've taken my focus off Him and am generally looking around at the world.  People around us appear to have met with great success and affluence or have "made the world a better place," but in fact it is the Lord's measure we should use.

I look at my four rapidly growing children and recognize that the time and effort I have invested in them, and the decisions I have made not to "grab the brass ring" will pay off in God's time.  God only knows how the seeds you, I and others have planted will produce, or even when they'll germinate?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Ark--midlife crisis? I'm 51 and can out skate a lot of teens. My husband cannot bear to watch sometimes as I skate backwards really fast. It isn't blades though, but I still am quite impressive. I love to skate to rock n' roll and dance a bit. I hope this isn't too shocking for anyone as they invision an old gray-haired lady looking ridiculous. Actually the hair is dark, dark auburn(thank you Clairol and MY midlife crisis) and I have remained a bit of a child, as we all should. It has helped keep me young.

seekr

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Richard @ June 03 2002,07:18)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Could you give me links to some of those quotations sites you know of?[/quote]
Richard, hi. Here are a few good ones:

http://www.bartleby.com/quotations/

http://www.quotationspage.com/

http://www.aphids.com/quotes/index.shtml

Go to Google.com and do a search for "quotations" and a bunch will come up, some better than others of course!
Gotta run so hope this posts okay!

- barb

Hello all -

Contentment is such an interesting word.  I recently was stirred to study what the Bible says leads to being content when I read Philippians 4.  In verses 4 through 7 Paul exhorts us to rejoice in the Lord and he repeats for emphasis to rejoice.  He also says not to be anxious over anything.  Hmmmm.  And in verse 7, experience the peace of God which transcends all understanding.  Wow.  Pretty heavy stuff.  There is a wonderful promise in there that we can have an indescribable peace.  So, I asked myself as honestly as I could, "Would you say, Steve, that you are experiencing a peace that transforms all understanding?  Are you anxious over nothing?"  Ahem, I wasn't real happy with the answers.  

Then I read on in the second part of verse 12 (and this really got me started).  Paul writes that he had "learned the SECRET (or mystery) being content in and and every situation..."  That seems to me that Paul, over time, learned the secret.  It wasn't just revealed the moment he was saved.  I then wondered what the real secret is.  You see, I love God very much, and I place my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and yet, that secret of contentment and that peace that transcends were not a part of my every day existence and I wondered why.  

Well, I searched scripture and it became pretty clear to me that the key or secret to contentment is coming to grips with not only who God is, but - in a certain sense as important - who I am (or rather who I am not!!!).  By began to understand that there must be less and less and less of me in order for there to by more and more and more of God.  In Psalm 51 David eloquently describes the manner, being and heart one should have toward God.  He cries out to have God create in him a pure heart and a renewed steadfast spirit.  He later writes that "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise".  The secret, I feel, is knowing how desperately and totally dependent we are on God for ALL things, in ALL ways, in EVERY aspect of our lives.  By that understanding, we see how we - in response to that truth - approach God.  With a broken spirit and contrite heart.  You see, the deeper we are in Him, how little of us is left.  John the Baptist understood that, Paul certainly did, David cried out for such a heart.  Paul called himself the chief of sinners - not, in my view, only because of what he did when persecuting Christians, but in the full realization of who he was at the time he wrote those words.  God, in His great mercy and grace, revealed to Paul just how deep his sin was.  We should also not deceive ourselves.   Our sins reflect our utterly lost condition save for the grace of Almighty God through faith in all that Jesus Christ accomplished in His life, death and resurrection.

Brothers and sisters, you know in this life I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to approach God humbly enough to reflect the enormity of what He has done on our behalf. But we can strive to by understanding the hopeless, sinful condition of ourselves that placed Jesus on the Cross.  By really coming to grips with our condition and understanding our sin, are we able to deeply love God, fully rejoice in what He is in our lives and find the contentment that He promises through the peace that transcends understanding.  We can then begin to approach God boldly bowed.