“God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you.” This is Contentment and the Ache Within.
Augustine wrote these words on contentment long before instant text messaging and social media.
The truth remains; you were made by God, for God. Yet you live in a world that says we can double-tap, swipe-right, thumbs up our way to happiness. The problem is instant gratification does not equal happiness. Your very essence is designed to find rest and wholeness in your Creator. While the world says contentment is a state of happiness or satisfaction we know there is more.
Reverand Bob Ragan, a member of the Regeneration Ministries team, is on the podcast to unpack the meaning of contentment and 4 ways to develop it in your own life.
Come as you are. “Becoming Whole” is inviting you to discover how to satisfy the ache within.
Highlights:
The world’s idea of contentment is based on my emotions and my environment, contentment is based on a set of conditions and our world is in a state of flux
The Holy Spirit shifts our focus out of this temporal satisfaction and says there’s something more
When we feel that ache of longing for it to continue, that actually is God’s way of helping to increase our hearts capacity for what is coming
Homework:
Gratitude is powerful for shaping our brains, our hearts, and our actions. The road to contentment begins with gratitude.
- What do you pay attention to? What’s wrong? Your fears? LOOK AROUND TO FIND SOMETHING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR
- Gratitude moments – Make time every day for Moments of Gratitude. Ask yourself, What can I thank God for right now? What good am I seeing?
- Practice – send out text messages/emails to 5 people telling them why you’re grateful for them.
Resources/Extras:
“God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” Augustine
“Nothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when people are utterly persuaded that nothing – not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends – nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God.” – John Piper
“There’s a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. When you truly know God, you have the energy to serve Him, boldness to share Him, and contentment in Him. – J.I. Packer
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” –CS Lewis “The Weight of Glory”
“Fill these Hearts: God, Sex and the Universal Longing” by Christopher West
Jesus’ ‘Farewell Discourse’: “Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. 3 And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. 4 And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.” 9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves. 12 I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” John 14:1-14
Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.”
“The loss of joy is the warning sign of discontentment knocking at our heart.” C.S. Lewis
“I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking.” George Macdonald
Click for Full Podcast Transcription
Josh 0:02
Most of the time, when people think about prayer, they think about what we say to God our requests our praises or intercession for other people, or thanks, or questions, maybe complaints, too. But what if there’s another side to the equation? What if prayer could also be about what God wants to say to us? Well, the fact is, it is. Prayer is also about listening. So in today’s podcast, Kate and I are going to chat about this neglected part of prayer. Why listening to God is such a central part of not only our ministry, but really central part of the Christian life, and how listening to God can actually bring healing some of the deepest parts of a person. So a kid, what are things I was thinking about in relation This is I was saying about some of my own past my early Christian experience and, and the role that listening to God either did or didn’t play. What was in your early Christian life? What was was listening to God a part of that was it was it? Was it present people talk about that. Did you experience that? Where did you begin with this? This part?
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Original music by Shannon Smith. Audio engineering by Gabriel @ DelMar Sound Recording.
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Great message! Thanks Josh and Bob.This message on contentment was perfect timing for me personally.