Contentment

I have mentioned before I am reading this book with some girlfriends.  This afternoon I read the next chapters as I sat outside watching the girls play in the sprinkler.  

The title of this chapter is 'Wanting What You Have vs. Having What You Want'.  I already didn't want to read on.  Here are a couple of excerpts that really moved me:

When she is dissatisfied with his provision for the family and constantly pushes for more material possessions she is telling him he is failing to provide in the manner she had hoped to become accustomed.

In America, the average size of a new home has grown from 1500 square feet to 2190 square feet, and the number of cars has risen from one car for every two Americans to one car for each driving age individual.  The number of people taking cruises each year has risen from 500,000 to 6.5 million, and the production of recreational vehicles has risen from 30,000 to 239,000. 

Does this mean that we are happier and more satisfied? Journalist Kathy Bergen notes, "A growing body of research is reaching the conclusion that the country's unprecedented surge in affluence in not spawning a corresponding surge in contentment, personal or social."  Robert E. Lane, professor emeritus of political science at Yale University notes that we are experiencing a rising tide of clinical depression and that Americans are no happier than they were when our incomes were one-third of what they are now, back in 1948.

I only struggled a little reading those thoughts.  I mean after all, our house is barely half of 1500 sq feet, and I only complain sometimes about only having one car.(HA!)  Then I read these next thoughts and I was completely pinned.

One of the wealthiest men in the Bible, King Solomon, concluded this about the accumulation of wealth as it relates to contentment: "I have seen all things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (Ecclesiastes 1:14). Are we, as wives, causing our husbands to chase after the wind to make us happy, when in reality material gain is not what's going to make us happy at all?

The one couple in all eternity had the makings for complete contentment were Adam and Eve. And yet Satan came to Eve and told her there was more.  He made her think that God was holding out on her and tempted her with the one restriction put on her by God.

For years I have known and even taught about Satan's lie in the garden.  A lie that makes us think that God is holding out on us.  But I don't think I have ever considered that it was the wife that he appealed to.  That's a big thought! 

Lord Jesus, forgive me for believing the lie that You are holding out on me. Please teach me as you taught Paul, to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself.  I never want to disrespect my husband and make him feel like what he does is never enough.  Change my heart for the benefit of my marriage, and for the example that my girls see. May I and they learn to be a contented wife that brings honor to our husbands and ultimately to You.