“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.
If comparison and envy steal your joy and self-pity puts peace to flight, this contentment challenge is for you.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose hearts are the highways. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. —Psalm 84:5-7 (ESV) That was…
“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…