It can be so easy to be discontented with where I am in life, even when rationally I am convinced that I am where God wants me to be. I look back to the past, and miss things I used to do that, for whatever reason, are no longer a part of my life (like short-term mission trips, or going to my old church), or I miss dreams that I once had that I now know can no longer ever be (at least not in the way I had envisioned them, once upon a time). I look forward to the future, and I see all the hopes and plans and desires I have, and can become impatient in my desiring, unable to wait for them to come to fruition in God's timing. Or I can look at the present, and choose to see only the things that aren't quite right, that make me uncomfortable or anxious or stressed.
You know what the problem is, with this way of looking at the world?
It never leaves you a time to be happy.
The way to be happy - the way to find joy - is to praise God in the present, to seek Him now, to choose to see the beauty in the place and time in which He has set you, to thank Him for His goodness and faithfulness and sovereignty in working out everything - here and now - just the way He has. When you look at the world through eyes of trust and gratitude, you can be content anywhere; when you look at the world through eyes of discontentment, striving to make yourself and your circumstances worthwhile by your own strength, you will never be content though you have everything you thought your heart desired.
When the rain finally falls after a long drought, the dirt itself in its dryness rejoices. Do I rejoice when the rain of His refreshing falls on my thirsty soul, or do I complain that it is not enough?
"Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips." - Psalm 63:3-5, emphasis added
His love is enough reason to be satisfied, regardless of what else is happening in my life.
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