Contentment Part 3
Where do we find contentment? It is something we greatly desire but find elusive. This universal restlessness pursuit suggests that we were created to be content.
C.S. Lewis observed that the presence of an unfulfilled deep longing indicates we were meant to find satisfaction in another world. Our experiences and the world can’t fill this void. Left to our nature, we’ll always be restless. The key to experiencing contentment comes from understanding its source, its elusiveness, and how to attain it.
The only being who is complete content is God. When we go back to Genesis 1:1, we find that before the creation, God existed, and creation was brought into existence by his sovereign will.
Erik Raymond writes in Chasing Contentment that, “The Bible teaches us that God is one. That is, he is one in his essence or being. At the same time, God exists in three distinct, coequal, and coeternal persons who glorify and enjoy one another. These three persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We call this one God in three persons the Trinity. When we peer over the fence prior to Genesis 1:1, we find ourselves looking in on one God who exists in the beautifully diverse and unified community of the Trinity.”
God is eternal, having no beginning or end and not bound by time. He is immutable, unchanging in character, power, knowledge, and holiness. God is independent, self-sufficient, and does not need anything or anyone. Theologian Louis Berkhof states, “God has the ground of his existence in himself and, unlike man, does not depend on anything outside of himself. He is independent in his being, in his virtues, and actions, and independence causes all his creatures to depend on him. The idea is embodied in the name Jehovah.” God’s self-giving love is so essential to his character that John declares, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). And God is committed to his glory, that everything God does is with the goal of communicating his glory.
When we consider these qualities together, we see that God is unchanging, self-sufficient, overflowing in self-giving love, and unflinchingly committed to his own glory. In other words, God has always been perfectly content in himself.
Have you ever considered God as being content? It’s crucial for us, as we strive to learn contentment, to see him in this light. The Bible portrays him as both the object and the model of contentment. He is content in himself, and he demonstrates that the only way to find contentment is in him.
Since we were created by God and created in his image, the only way we can find satisfaction is to find our contentment in God. Erik Raymond provides this great insight: “Any attempt to understand contentment must begin with God. As the only uncreated being, he is the only one who is not dependent on someone or something else. He is entirely self-sufficient. And as such, he alone is eligible to be the source of any true and lasting contentment.”
Pastor Kyu