The Only Constant

Contentment and discontentment are not based on our circumstances. We choose one or the other, completely based on our own state of mind, our own attitude.

When the Israelites were in Egypt, enduring horrible enslavement and persecution, they cried out for God to save them. After God saved them, they were trapped between the Red Sea and the pursuing Egyptians and wished they were back in Egypt, where they would at least be alive. Once God parted the Red Sea for them, they started complaining about hunger, missing the food they had in Egypt. God started giving them manna every day, but they got tired of it and longed for the meat they had in Egypt. The story continues like that, basically for the whole Old Testament.

As easy as it is to see and be annoyed by the Israelites' discontentment and poor memory of God's goodness, it's difficult for us to see that we are those Israelites.

We treat God like a vending machine: he should give us everything we want, and he should give it when, where, and how we specify. We ask for one thing after another after another, thinking that each new thing will satisfy us. And when every one lets us down, every time, we blame it on the one who provided the blessing in the first place. We have it all backwards! When worldly things fail us, why do we blame that which is not of this world? God gave it, but who asked for it?

Even more importantly, when will we realize that no amount of earthly blessings, even if they are God-given, can compare to God himself? When he blesses us with earthly things, when he answers our prayers, he doesn't give these things to fill us. He gives them because he is a loving Father who likes to give his children good gifts. It is our perversion, our lack of heavenly-mindedness, that makes us cling to what is finite, railing against what is infinitely good and infinitely loving and infinitely satisfying.

He is the only satisfaction. In him is the only end of our endless cravings.

When we were in our own Egypt, slaves to our sins, we cried for God to rescue us, and he did. But we still look for any opportunity to complain, to say that God isn't good or fair or loving. We even look back longingly on our former enslavement. We magnify the few positive things about our Egypt, while minimizing entirely what made us cry out for help. And at the same time, we magnify the negatives of our current situation, minimizing the blessings of God's provision and salvation. We are the inconsistent ones. We cause our own distress by choosing to see things this way. God is constant through all of our inconsistencies.

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself." 
2 Timothy 2:13