Desiring God Brings Contentment
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Each morning when I open the drapes to my deck, I see Steller’s jays waiting in the nearby trees. They know I will place peanuts for them on the railing.
I like the way their different personalities are revealed—some sit in the trees as watchers, and others come when the watchers start squawking at the arrival of peanuts. Yet one bird seemed smarter than all the rest. Until one day, he became greedy.
I will name him Griffin. Griffin would linger in the background until all the other birds had eaten their fill and had flown away. Then he would fly over and stand by the sliding door, knocking on it until I gave him a peanut. One day, I saved a special shell that had three peanuts in it just for that moment. I opened the door and threw it out.
Griffin took it and hopped up onto the railing.
However, I noticed another bird sitting in a tree and threw one out on the deck for him too. Griffin decided he wanted it and jumped down to retrieve it.
Just then, the other bird swooped in and took Griffin’s special peanut—leaving him with a single, plain peanut. As I sat back down in my chair, I remembered the counsel that we should be content with what we have. “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV). If we take a deeper look into the context of this verse, we realize that at the time it was written, most people did not have much. So to be content with little had a lot of meaning to them. And the writer continues and tells us why we can be truly content with little.
It is because Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us.
It is more than simply saying, “If life gives you lemons, make the best of it by making lemonade.” We can attest to the truth that a life with God brings contentment in any situation because Jesus can meet our every need, and He gives us joy. (See Philippians 4:11).
This is a message the Griffins of our world need to hear.
Ruthanne Bixel
