“Contentment is a soul business…it is a grace that spreads itself through the whole soul.”
–Jeremiah Burroughs
I knew a lady who used to make a wonderful seafood paella. Paella [pronounced ‘pie-ay-ya’] is a dish that is filled with all sorts of delightful ingredients: sausage, rice, shrimp, mussels, lobster, peppers and onions, among other things. Traditional paella requires an extended time for simmering and may include rare and valuable spices, like saffron. Paella involves many ingredients before it can be called by that name.
Christian contentment has many things in common with paella. It is a dish or a frame of mind that requires many of the Lord’s choicest and most valuable graces to be infused into it. Although pastor Jeremiah Burroughs does call contentment a grace [see the quote above, The Rare Jewel, 14.], Simeon Ashe, draws closer to the heart of contentment when he writes, “Contentment, though it be not properly a grace—it is rather a disposition of mind—yet in it there is an happy temperature [mild blending] and mixture of all the graces. It is a most precious compound, which is made up of faith, patience, meekness, humility, and love, which are the ingredients put into it.” [Simeon Ashe, Primitive Divinity, 89.] Christian contentment is a complex dish but should be part of the believer’s daily fare. Are you enjoying contentment?
The apostle Paul was content. He learned how to be content in whatever his circumstances he was experiencing. While suffering through a period of house arrest in Rome, he wrote the following to the Philippians: “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:11-13) He maintained a gracious spirit of contentment by leaning on Jesus Christ. To borrow Ashe’s terminology, Paul’s precious compound, contentment, was made up of his faith in the Son of God, his patience displayed to the utmost, his meekness and humility which he consciously ‘put on’ (see Col. 3:12), and love which bears all things. Believer, do not let that list discourage you but know that the Spirit of God is graciously mixing all those ingredients into your life.
One last thing about paella, traditional paella is cooked over an open flame so that the smoke might infuse the dish and bring it to maturity. Contentment is a dish best cooked over the open flame of adversity. The believer’s submission to the Lord through affliction infuses him or her with an undeniable maturity. Praise the Lord for how good he is to his people. I want to close this brief devotional with a very concise definition of contentment (I promised to post this a week ago during the sermon time): “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, freely submitting to, and taking complacency in [pleasure in], God’s wise and fatherly dispose [arrangement] in every condition.” [Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel, 12.]
Have a blessed week and we will see you on Sunday.
Your servant in all faithfulness, but in much weakness,
Pastor Dale
