A Key To Contentment

Learning to enjoy things for what they are, instead of being discouraged by what they were never meant to be.

I’m convinced that Jesus will make life better, but not perfect.

At least not in this life.

I recently read that the happiest place in the world is Denmark.

Why were they so happy?

One of the reasons I read is because they have low expectations.

For the record, America didn’t rate very high on the list of happy countries. I wonder if a reason for that is because we’re always being sold that we’re one purchase, one relationship, one pound, or three easy steps away from being totally happy and fulfilled. Think about it. Nearly every commercial could be summarized like this:

Your life isn’t as good as it could be, but if you had ____________ then your life would be better.

So we buy the car

we start a relationship

we lose the weight

and we follow the three easy steps

But then the “new” car becomes old.

The relationship didn’t solve our loneliness or anxiety.

We still don’t feel like we’re attractive enough.

And it turns out life can’t be fixed in three easy steps.

We bought _________, and it turns out that life didn’t change that much.

I wonder if sometimes the way Christians talk about Jesus is a lot like those commercials I was talking about. So we say things like…

You’re life isn’t very good, but if you had Jesus, it would be everything you want it to be. So you buy into it. You believe. You say the prayer. You go to church. You give. You read the Bible.

But then cancer takes the life of a loved one.

Depression still whispers into your ear.

Someone you trusted hurts you.

You get laid off.

And we’re left wondering if we did something to deserve this or did Jesus abandon me or is he even there at all.

But does Jesus promise to make everything about our lives better?

It’s interesting to me that often the commercials I hear in churches are far different than what I think Paul or Peter or John would have said. Paul was shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten and eventually killed. Peter was said to have been crucified upside down. Some say John was boiled alive. And this happening because they were following Jesus, not because they weren’t.

I have this suspicion that the reason have become so discouraged and disengaged with Jesus is because they were told that Jesus would make life all better — and then he didn’t.

And I think Jesus has been taking the blame when the problem isn’t Jesus, but our version of Jesus that we’ve been given.

Jesus never promised that life would be easy, but he promises that we have hope in the midst of the hells we will experience. A biblical theodicy is not that all will go well, but that even when it doesn’t, this God is our ally. Jesus never says that faith will calm the raging seas of life, but he does assure that faith will provide the strength to enable us not to sink, even when we get soaked.

Maybe a key to enjoying the journey of faith is to understand that God never promises a perfect life, but he does promise a better life — and by the way, those two things are very different. One is possible, while the other is not. I can have a better life even if it’s not a perfect life. I wonder if I were to get this, instead of being frustrated at a version of god that doesn’t exist or being let down by promises god never made; I wonder if it would free me to enjoy God in the good seasons, and cling to the hope that he’s with me in the bad ones.

I wonder if this is true if we’re to enjoy anything in general.

That the sooner we can realize what things can do and also know what they were never created to do, the sooner we can enjoy them the way they were meant to be enjoyed.

The sooner I realize that a new phone won’t complete me, the sooner I can just enjoy it for what it is — a cool piece of technology.

The sooner I realize that my spouse won’t be my savior — the sooner I can just enjoy them for who they are. A best friend and partner who is just as human as I am.

Maybe the sooner we realize this, the more we’ll be free to enjoy God, life, people, and things for what they are instead of living frustrated about why they aren’t doing what they never promised to do in the first place.

What do you think?