“True contentment,” G. K. Chesterton wrote, “is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.”
So how do we cultivate such contentment?
Chesterton’s surprising connection between /kənˈtent/ and /ˈkäntent/ has lately been a world of help to me.
“Daddy, will we make it?” This was white-knuckle trauma, at least to the eight-year-old daughter riding shotgun. But fumes were enough to get dad’s little yellow Chevy Luv truck across that busy intersection and into the gas station lot. Fumes were sufficient to get us to the pump. Like sufficient grace. Grace enough. Sufficient. Do…
Look up. That’s what pilgrims do. If the troubles of the world feel heavy and your burdens leave you weary, then Bradford’s poem is for you—for you, pilgrim.
“Sometimes God, out of love, treats us to a good dose of delay.” In other words, God’s love delays. Sometimes grace doesn’t save and mercy doesn’t heal and somehow it’s all done in love. How can we possibly believe this?