You will come again tomorrow, won't you?

In Kierkegaard's discourse To Be Contented with Being a Human Being, he has a lovely little illustration of the difference between an attitude colored by anxiety and an attitude of contentment and trust:

"If a girl in love said to her beloved when he came to visit her, 'You will come again tomorrow, won't you?' - there would still be some anxiety in her love. But if, without mentioning tomorrow, she threw her arms around his neck and said, 'Oh, thank you for coming today' - then she would indeed be altogether assured about tomorrow. Or if there were two girls, and the one said to her beloved, 'You will come again tomorrow, won't you?' and the other said, 'Oh, thank you for coming today' - which of the two would be more convinced that the beloved would come again tomorrow?"

Kierkegaard's point is that if we are worrying about something in the future, it shows that we do not have full trust and assurance in the person responsible for that something. If we are fully and completely trusting in that person, we need not even think about the future, much less worry and question about it. We can instead delight with gratitude in the present moment. So if someone trusts God to provide for him, then even when he has no money for the next day's needs he can thank God for supplying his needs for this day, and let the future rest in God's hands. This kind of genuine unshakeable faith can be seen in the life of George Mueller, a Prussian pastor in England during the mid 1800s, who opened orphanages in Bristol in response to the great need he saw there, eventually becoming able to care for 2000 children at a time in these homes. Because he carried out this work without asking anyone for money (and because he didn't even accept a salary for himself from his pastoral position!), choosing instead to rely completely on God, he was able to see God provide countless times, in countless ways. People would donate money just as it was needed, or in the exact amount required; once, when they had no food at all, he still gathered all the children together to give thanks for breakfast - and donated food arrived just as they finished their prayers.

For most of us today, Mueller's situation is far from the actual experience of our lives. But we still have needs, and we still have worries - in fact, it seems that worries do not decrease even when needs do! For my husband and I, right now, those worries tend to be about planning and decision-making as we're both at the beginning of career paths with a multitude of options in front of us for both those careers and the family we want to have someday. It would be easy to worry, for instance, that Paul won't be accepted to a PT school and our lives will remain in limbo, or that he will be accepted and I won't be able to get a job after the move, or that we would find ourselves unexpectedly pregnant. And I have worried about all those things, and I've poured out my anxiety and questions to God many times - but while it is good to take my anxieties to Him, I need to do so with an attitude of trust. Only when I truly trust Him can He actually calm the worries and fears in my heart. When my heart is content in Him, responding with joy and gratitude for the guidance and provision He has given me today, convinced that He will continue to lead and provide in the future - then, and only then, will I be able to find peace from my worries.

First Day of Thanks

For the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I thought it would be really neat to take some time each day to remember some of the blessings I have, for which I am very grateful! It can be so easy for me to focus on the problems in my life (especially now when school is busy and the holidays, with all their corresponding obligations and expectations, are looming near), but in reality I have so much to be thankful for, and focusing on those things is a wonderful way to cultivate contentment and joy in my heart.


Today I am thankful for...

...a warm bed to wake up in and the chance to start off my day with a hot shower!

...a husband who is home with me (instead of deployed, for example) and lets me snuggle up next to him in the morning when I wake up and don't want to get out of bed yet

...a job with flexible hours that allows me to take classes part-time and gives us an income to live on

...all the kids at Awana on Wednesday night! Working with those kids is one of the highlights of my week :)

...delicious perfect pomegranates from my parents' tree

...the special berries that my husband got for me on Tuesday! Berries in November - crazy, right? Only in Arizona, I guess :)

...a Bible of my own, in my heart language, and the ability to read it and draw closer to God through it.

...amazing grace that never lets me go!

Contentment, commitment, and love

Love is founded on commitment. It is what allows love to rise above the ebb and flow of emotions to become something enduring and precious. So in order to have a truly lasting love, it is necessary to set your will beneath it - to choose, when emotions are high and love seems to carry all away before it, to keep loving even when those emotions have disappeared and the intoxicating aroma of new love has faded away.

Of all the things that erode this determination of the will, discontentment is, I think, one of the most potent. Cultivating an attitude of discontent will inevitably eat away at one's commitment to another person and thus destroy one's love for that person from within. There is always a fault to be found in one's current situation or with a particular friend or with one's husband or wife. Especially for someone idealistic like me, who is always searching for the best in any situation, it is easy to see those shortcomings! When I was single, for example, I often longed for the union and deep mutual knowing and love of marriage, and now within marriage I keep wondering how our relationship and service to God could be improved and am tempted to compare our marriage with others. Instead of finding ways to serve and honor God at my current job and time of life, I wish that I could be in a more active ministry or even in foreign missions. In every case, the issue lies within my heart: I fail to see the opportunities that lie in my present situation, looking rather at the multitude of opportunities that abound in different situations all around me. I choose to focus on the shortcomings of where I am now instead of on the great blessings that are hidden in these circumstances, and in so doing I allow my heart to be filled with dissatisfaction and discontent - and my love diminishes.

Whence, then does true contentment come? How can I be content in the circumstances and relationships I have now instead of yearning for something else? It comes from the Lord God. If my heart has found its rest in Christ, then it derives full satisfaction from Him alone, regardless of where my life may take me. As the psalmist said,

"How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures." - Psalm 36:7-8

If my deep satisfaction comes from God, then I don't need to look for it in my situation, and I can even have the joy in my heart necessary to see the good and the beautiful in my circumstances no matter what they are. With this contentment, then (stemming from God and opening my eyes to the many blessings I have in my current position), I can strengthen my commitment to the ones I love, and thus build a more lasting love for them.

The dirt itself rejoices

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.