You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. Matthew 5:5 (The Message, Eugene Peterson)
It appears to me that the most content person to ever live must have been Jesus. That is a fairly easy and safe statement to make, is it not? It is a pretty safe assumption on my part, I think. When I think on the word content, I think of Jesus. I am not saying that the life of Jesus was content and that the happenings around him were always filled with contentment. On the contrary, if you read the Bible, you will find circumstances that would seem to breed the exact opposite characteristic of contentment.
What I am asserting is that Jesus’ spirit was content. I want to make a distinction between what is happening to us in life and our spirit. If we define happiness as contentment with our circumstances, we will most certainly be quickly disappointed. If we define our happiness based on our spirit, which ideally rises above circumstance, we can understand the ability to be content anywhere and anytime. Of course, this is easier said than done. The temptation for some in America is to let the happenings around us determine our level of happiness. This is especially true of my generation and the generation after me. We are quickly forgetting the “hard times” in American history.
I am afraid that my generation and some of the young people today have lost sight of the value of life and the value of tough times. We have forgotten the stories about The Great Depression and World War II. For us, the toughest time in our lives is not getting into the college we had expected or getting the Cherokee instead of the Grand Cherokee for our 16th birthday or getting the wooden Jack Kramer tennis racket instead of the graphite Prince tennis racket or the wrong set of loafers, the cheaper suit, the no—name brand tie, the wrong sorority, the less popular high school. The list could be a sermon in itself.
We are spoiled. Not all of us, for sure. I am making a bit of a generalization here. But if the above choices and disappointments are the major ones we in America have to face, it is no wonder that we are raising a generation of people who cannot face the real issues in life. And it is no wonder that in America, we have the most “stuff” and are the most discontented and spoiled nation.
We have set ourselves up for it. Haven't we? It is our own doing. So the question becomes, how do we undo the damage? How do we begin to focus on the truly important issues in life? Dr. Earle Crawford writes in his latest book on this particular beatitude, “We all begin life dependent and self-centered. As we grow, we discover we are not the center of the universe, and if we commit ourselves to Christ we learn that we are called, not to be served, but to serve.” (1)
He goes on to quote another author when he writes, “Weakness is yielding to our nature; meekness is mastery over it. The meek man is one who has got himself out of the center of the picture.” (2)
If we have a goal, it might be to get ourselves out of the center of the picture. The greatest generation was more attuned to selflessness and service and being content with very little. Amy Bernstein, a reporter for U.S. News and World Report has written, “For Americans with household incomes under $25,000, it would take $54,000 a year to fulfill the American Dream. Those who make $100,000 plus, crave an average of $192,000. In other words, the American Dream usually lies nearly twice the distance away.” (3) The Station, a piece written by Robert J. Hastings, begins like this:
Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls. But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering – waiting, waiting, waiting for the station. “When we reach the station, that will be it,” we cry. “When I'm 18.” “When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz!” “When I put the last kid through college.” “When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after.” Sooner or later we will realize there is no station, no one place to arrive once and for all. The true joy is the trip. The station is only a dream. (4)
Even the great King Solomon, in all his glory, could not please himself with things. He called it “Chasing after the wind” in Ecclesiastes 1:14. David Stone, an associate pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, advises us to “gain our significance from God and not things.” He quotes R.C. Sproul, who wrote, “Our problem isn't wanting things too much, it's not wanting Him enough.” (5)
It is difficult to put a price tag on a relationship with Christ. I have heard that the dividends are unbeatable. You have probably noticed that some of the most content people are also people who are very close to Christ. It doesn't mean that their lives are always filled with happy moments or that they are on a constant joyride. In fact, some of the closest people to Christ have faced some of the greatest obstacles in life.
Their joy is not from circumstance but from Him. In the second half of our beatitude, as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message, he writes, “That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.” What do you suppose that means? “Proud owners of everything that can't be bought.” What are things that can't be bought?
Let me ask this: If everything that can be bought was suddenly taken from our lives, would we be content? If we lost our careers, but we had Christ, would we be content? If the stock market crashed, and everything we had saved for retirement was gone, but we had Christ, would we be content? If we had to make the choice, Christ or the American Dream, which would we pick?
Rest assured these are questions for me to answer too. You see, I am not so sure that Christ doesn't ask everything from us. It is a radical but certainly not a new idea. I think that God uses circumstances to ascertain what is really important in our lives. What do we have when everything falls apart? When tragedy hits? When everything in life that made sense is destroyed and left in shambles? What would be left? What is the foundation of our lives?
In the end, all the material things wither or are passed on to future generations. Careers come to an end. Fame fades into the night. Reputation dwindles. Houses age. And so do we. With every technique known to humankind, we have tried to outsmart the clock. We have tried to stop the clock that is ticking.
The question is what will we have left? When they take away everything external, what will be there? When we are on our deathbed, having lost all dignity, and we become just another number to the world around us, what hope will we have? Christ was there on the cross. Everything that he had in this world (which wasn't much from a material standpoint) had been stripped away. Any reputation he had in the world had been totally diminished. The crown he wore was made of thorns. The friends he had fled the scene. People mocked him. They spit on him. They made fun of him. They laughed at him. He died alone. What did Jesus have left? Nothing. Not one thing! On the contrary, Jesus had everything— “Everything that can't be bought.”
Sources Consulted:
1. Earle W. Crawford. Assurance of Unending Happiness: Reflections on the Beatitudes. First Presbyterian Church, Wichita Falls TX. 2000.
2. Ibid.
3. Quoted from David Stone, Discover Contentment. Preaching Plus, Group Publishing, 2001.
4. Robert J. Hastings, The Station.
5. Stone, Discover Contentment.
