Day 2727 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.


Philippians 4:11 NIV

Contentment is another one of those lessons that life’s circumstances sometimes give us a chance to learn in weird ways. Sitting here still in the hospital and just find myself praying about how thankful I am to be here. Not my preferred locale, but when we allow ourselves to stop clinging to our preferences and focus in on finding the good in our situations, then we just might learn that it’s all good anyway, whether it’s what we’d consider perfect or not.

You see, we get caught up in what we want life to be far too often. We focus on our dreams, our goals, our wants, our wishes. And in the midst of all that, God’s countless simple blessings become forsaken in the background. And so sometimes He takes us to places we don’t want to be to help us see that even there we’re still blessed beyond measure. He takes things away so that we can finally learn what we had. He leads us through trials to help us learn what we have inside and Who we have above.

And all of it would never happen should we always get our way and never go through anything hard or painful or inconvenient. Humbling ourselves to learning Godly contentment is one of the most important lessons we could ever learn because life will never be exactly what we want. And it would be a shame to miss out on the ability to see that it’s still everything we need anyway. Failing to see God’s blessings in our lives just because they’re not the blessings we ordered is a true disservice that only harms us.

Friends, whatever the circumstances. Whatever life may throw at you. Whatever life may take away. There’s good in it all and being able to find that good is one of the biggest secrets to peace and happiness in life. We don’t need to get our way. We need to appreciate God’s way. We don’t need to be angry when life is hard. We need to thankful yo be able to endure the hardships we’re faced with down here. We don’t need an easy or perfect ride. We just need to embrace this one shot we’ve been given and squeeze all the wisdom and growth and faith that we possibly can put of it!

It’s all just a matter of gratitude. And if we can’t be thankful for the hard then we don’t deserve the good. If we can’t appreciate the challenges then we’ll like miss out on the rewards they bring. Just set your heart to finding the good. It’s there, and even if it’s hard to find some days, it’s always worth looking for!

After all, the truth is that none of us are ever in need because God and His perfect provision, undeserved love, and unending mercy are more than enough. We just need some help learning and remembering that every now and then.

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