“But godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6:6)
This verse rocked me this morning. So often I focus on the first part and pursue godliness alone with a rigid perfectionism that blindly misses a lot of other important things in life… like the second part of the verse…
Godliness WITH 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.
Don’t get me wrong. Scripture has a lot to say about the pursuit of godliness. We should eagerly strive to become more like Jesus in righteous living.
Godliness is a GOOD thing.
But godliness WITH 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 is even better.
Discontentment has to do with having or not having. It often reveals the secret places where we feel most entitled.
For me, a huge area of entitlement is t͟i͟m͟e͟. When it comes to parenting a toddler, you only have a small window of time each day where true productivity is possible. And for a productivity junkie like myself, when that time is encroached upon, I can quickly become impatient and frustrated.
This has become an area of discontentment for me recently. Rather than seeing the time I do have as a gift, I have been focusing on the time I’ve lost as though something has been stolen from me.
I quickly forget that I’m not owed anything in this lifetime. Every good and perfect gift comes from God—including my time. AND my daughter. So even though she’s been struggling with the transition to sleeping in her new room, and even though that means my precious time has been infringed upon much more than I would like lately, I can still choose godliness WITH 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.
And if I do, 1 Timothy 6:6 says that I will experience 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻.
Discontentment only equals loss. Loss of joy. Loss of peace. Loss of hope. Loss of precious resources like time, energy, and even money when you become fixated on investing in solutions to the external problems, rather than dealing with the internal sin.
So in this moment, I am choosing contentment. I am choosing to see what I have as a gift. Because godliness WITH 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 is 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻.
Where have you been struggling with entitlement/discontentment lately?
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