Response Blog 2

     For the past month, my wife and I have been in a place of discontentment. Not only have we been waiting patiently to move into our new house (which we are now almost done doing), but in the mean time, she also quit her job (which supported us) and was unemployed for about 5 weeks. This was a tumultuous time for our marriage, and it felt like there was more than enough to be discontent about. We were stressed about packing up our entire life and moving it, as well as about finances, since we had no major source of income, amongst other things in life. It truly did feel like we were just waiting for the punches to end. 

Thankfully, the Lord is a great provider. He is the Provider (Matthew 6). Through the support of our families prayers, and the few of ours that we were able to squeak out here an there, we were able to get through a time where it felt as if we had no stability. Yet this was not without discontentment playing some sort of role. In Jerry Bridges book Respectable Sins, in his chapter concerning this very topic, he helps to guide the reader to a place of repentance of this since. Jerry states, "Whatever situation tempts us to be discontent, and however severe it may be, we need to recognize that discontentment is sin...We are so used to responding to difficult circumstances with anxiety, frustration or discontentment that we consider the normal reactions to the varying vicissitudes of life...When we fail to recognize these responses to our circumstances as sin, we are responding no differently than from unbelievers who never factor God into their situation." (73)

I found this to be a very sobering quote. Especially since discontentment is such a small sin, or one that runs under the radar, it can be easy to not care about it, but it can lead to much larger sins if we are not careful to rout it out. 

There were certainly times in this past month where I was guilty of the sin of discontentment. I was unhappy where the Lord has places me in that moment in time. But the Lord does provide, and my guilty conscience is always proven wrong in the end. We are not promised material things in this life, but we are promised that the Lord will hear our prayers, and provide for all of our needs, just as Jesus says himself in Matthew 6. 

One great way which we the reader can continue to fight against this sin is to reflect on the passage which I have been referring to during this blog post. Matthew 6 provides a great outlook on possessions and the way that God provides for those whom He loves. 


This is a great book to read concerning contentment. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Response Blog 3

We have heard the passage many times from the gospels, "one cannot serve God and mammon". We have heard it preached on, money. Our parents have talked about it with us, our grandparents have given it to us. Everywhere we look, money is there, and there is simply no escaping it. In Paul Tripp's book Sex and Money, he talks about money in a very healthy way. I think it is very important that he both highlights the good and the bad aspects of money. In this post, I want to highlight why I think his discussion on the good aspects of money are particularly helpful, especially when it comes to dealing with the negative affects.  So often when the subject of money comes to the limelight, it is about the negative uses of it. Greed, theft, all-corrupting wealth, etc. Rarely are the positives taken to light, and even more rarely is it highlighted how the positive aspects of finances affect the amount of negative outcomes.  Two of the aspects of what Tripp says I want to talk about ...
Read more

Response Blog #4

 In a news article from 2019, it was found that about 40% of the people who moved to Florida moved there for the sake of retirement. This seems like it is the landing spot for everyone who retires. Everyone always wants to move to Florida. But why? It would not take one long to speculate that this is because (at least weather wise) Florida is the closest thing to paradise. There's the 80 degree waters, the long beaches, the hot summers. People move there because it is seemingly perfect (until a hurricane comes and destroys everything you own).  Paul Tripp speaks of something along these lines in his book Sex and Money . In the book, he talks about how eternity relates to us as people, and to our money/belongings. One thing that Tripp emphasizes is that if one is focused on eternity, their sex and money issues tend to decrease. But why is this so? We all have a values problem. Here it is: this side of eternity it is very hard to value in our heart what God says is important. T...
Read more

Response Blog #5

    The struggle for Christian's today against the temptations of the internet are at the level of a pandemic. It would probably be impossible to find a Christian man who has never struggled with lust at some point in their spiritual walk. It can be difficult to navigate conversations with people who struggle, but why is this? One reason why it is probably so difficult is because we do not want to offend those whom we love the most. This for me has always been one of the most difficult things. I hate confrontation. I hate division. I hate being uncomfortable; so approaching these conversations has always been something that I have struggled with, and at times, have fallen short of what I should have done.  One thing I really appreciate about what Paul Tripp says in his book Sex and Money  is this quote: " I knew in that moment that I would not help him by minimizing the daily temptations he was facing. I knew it wouldn’t help him to negate the power of the ...
Read more