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The Secret of Being Content

My life gets a little crazy sometimes. I'm probably the only person in the whole world, right? The biggest problem I have when my life gets like that is me - my attitude. I live with the American belief that my life should be everything I want it to be. I should have everything I want to have; do everything I want to do. Have oodles of free time to travel and visit friends, work on hobbies, exercise, cook fabulous healthy meals. I should be able to do it all and have it all.

The other night I had a dream - one that my husband had to awaken me from because I was yelling. In this dream, I was going through our house closing all the curtains and blinds. The kitchen was the last window to the outside world, but when I tried to raise my arm to drop the blinds, I couldn't. Something, some unseen force was holding my arm down. I struggled for a short time before I realized that the unseen force was an evil force, a demonic presence. It made me angry. I began yelling at it.

Later that morning as I pondered the dream and asked God about it, I realized what an accurate picture of my heart it is: I want to close all the windows of my soul out of which I peer into other peoples' lives and covet them. I don't want to look at these things that incite me to jealousy and covetousness. Of course, the enemy of my soul wants exactly that. He wants those windows swung wide open. He knows exactly where I am weak, what my flesh craves, longs for, covets. He knows how to dangle jewels in front of my face, effectively taking my eyes off Christ. He wants me as miserable as he can possibly make me. And he absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, allow me to learn the secret of which Paul speaks in Philippians 4:11 - the secret of being content in every situation.

I recently re-read the book, Secrets of The Vine by Bruce Wilkerson. The take-away point from that little book for me was, "Abide in Me."

A light popped on: the secret of being content..."Abide in Me."

As I mentioned, life gets a little crazy sometimes. I hate crazy. Some people thrive on it. I'm not one of them. I have a loooong way to go with this, but as different situations or problems have come up since I had that dream, and I felt myself looking out the window of my soul into the lives of others to covet and complain; as I felt anxiety kick in, Christ's words from John 15, "Abide in Me," made me pause. As I repeated those words, I felt my soul grow calm. I believe it's the secret, the secret Paul had learned.

I don't want to just know what the secret is; I want to live in it, walk in it. I want to be able to say with Paul, "I have learned the secret of being content in every situation."

I know. I'm asking for a miracle!
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