The village that I am living in is actually I believe, very safe. It is a quaint little village where the most threatening thing you’ll pass is probably a grandfather walking his cow home in the afternoon. Since our hosts love us a lot though, and manifest that love in an abundance of caution, we aren’t allowed to leave our house unless they are with us.
No walks down the street, no trips to a coffee shop, no late night runs to the grocery store. Fewer things to distract us. What being locked in does mean is so much intentional time with the friends I live with, uninterrupted slow mornings sitting with Jesus, and the perfect breeding grounds for our creativity to be utilized. Another danceexercise session on the porch or walking laps around the yard, sign me up!
When looking at situations with the eyes of the Father, He allows us to reframe them with a view of privilege and gratitude.
One of my sweet friends, Kennedy, in passing conversation this week said two things to me that got me thinking a lot about contentment and our lot in life. The first question she said to me was this: “If someone came to you, and was thinking about taking their own life, what would you tell them?”
This may sound like a heavy and hard left turn, but bear with me, her question lead me somewhere GOOD. In the moment I gave her a quick answer, having been surprised by the question. Sitting on it more the next day and listening to a podcast on Ecclesiastes, (Eternity in the Heart, by Tony Evans), I revised the answer in my head.
I would say this to them: “Stop, pause, and look around. You are in a good place. God doesn’t like our suffering, He doesn’t cause it, but He does allow it. He is allowing you to feel the way you are now because being completely and utterly dissastisfied with the world around you is exactly the conclusion He wants you to come to. When you realize there is no life to be found in the world is a perfect time for you to look to the only place life can be found, Jesus. Only the author of life has the authority to take it away, the question is what do you do now?”
In Ecclesiastes 7 it says this: “When times are good be happy; but when times are bad consider this: God has made the one as well as the other.”
This brings me to the second thing Kennedy said this week that made me think. Due to the poor design and leakiness of our bathroom, we need to clean the whole floor after every shower. She said this: “I think I love having to mop after I shower because it slows me down. I’m learning to love the things that slow me down.” Beautiful.
I think that we read Bible verses and passages about contentment and we like the way they sound. We hear it but we don’t change our lives. We continue lives of striving and arrive at the same conclusion of dissatisfaction. You and me both. We strive for more people, more money, more autonomy. There are people that have everything that they could ever desire in the world, and there are also people that have hardly any people around them and few worldly things. I would argue, using Truth, that there is just as much life and contentment to be found for both.
“This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them – for this is their lot. Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil – this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20)
What if instead of striving, we thanked God for the things in front of us. What if we paused to look for God in the:
Mopping of a floor,
The hand washing of dishes,
The cutting of hair,
The waving to a neighbor,
Or the view from a window.
I’ll be the first to say that this is hard. I’ve been going off about how I love my simple life stuck in our little house, staring at cows in Albania. Yet, this morning I woke up, and for the first time since I’ve been here, the long stretch of open space until we have people come over for ministry at 5:30 seemed impossibly long.
I checked my heart and looked around again. What a gift to do my life. What a gift to sit in the sun, to eat the same lunch I ate yesterday, and to listen to music. No matter what your life looks like, there is not a person that doesn’t sometimes feel disatisfied. My prayer is that we would look to God to give us contentment in the long and short days of our lives, whatever they look like.
His grace is this: His mercies are new every morning. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
