Content Right Where You Are

How often do we wish we were somewhere else? Ok when things are really rubbish that is ok but how often do we do it when say we’re in a beautiful place but it isn’t quite where we wanted to be so we wish we were somewhere else? We’re on our walk with God and they’ve got us in the valley when we’d like to be on the mountain top. Ok we often rationalise that into a “this is God’s plan so I’ll go with it” but really we’re not happy.

I’ve spent years chasing after something else, wish I was this big person in Christian mission stuff, chasing after it and it not happening, trying to rationalise it into being “God’s will” or pushing against it because it could be “of the devil” why I don’t get on.

The other day I was reading this is in Beth’s blog

‘not every lake dreams to be an ocean.’ –

memet murat ildan

And I realised that even though I had dreamed of being an ocean in fact I was really a lake and could be content being a lake. Like I can be content walking on the lakeside rather than climbing the mountain, content to have the dysfunctional family but surrounded by inspiring friends.

The Apostle Paul tells us to be content in all circumstances [Philippians 4:11-13] and I think, too often we take that as good times and bad times, hearing preaching on how these things are transient, changeable, and that we can endure because we will pass through them. But, for me, I’m coming to realise that some things will not change. I cannot change my family or that I’ve never done some of the things I’ve done, that I will always be a lake and not an ocean. But I can change how I see things. I can be content to be a lake, to have lived the stories I have, to have had to walk on the lakeside rather than climb the mountain, to have missed out on things, to have at times be really uncontent and angry at how things were. I cannot go back and change but I can now change how I feel about those situations.

So I can be content in all things past, present and future knowing always that so much I cannot change but I can change how I feel about things, how I view things.