Earlier this year, one of my kiddos went through a several-week period of extreme discontentment. This child seemed to have a bad attitude about almost everything. We experienced lots of complaining and griping and pining after (presumably better) things.
I had many talks with this child about changing our attitudes to be positive. We practiced acknowledging the good in our circumstances and pointing to the truth of situations that were not all bad. We prayed for a spirit of contentment and satisfaction. Finally, I resorted to a behavioral consequence: every time this child whined or complained, they* would have to list three things they were grateful for in their day.
Over the next several days, the complaining continued and, as a result, this child was assigned MANY gratitude lists. I questioned the efficacy of my approach. But as the week wore on, I noticed that the complaining started to dwindle. My child certainly wasn’t happy all the time, but the spirit of discontent seemed to be lifting. I can’t say whether it was the act of having to to make a list that was leading my child to vocalize fewer complaints, or if a heart change was actually taking root. Whatever the reason, we moved past that season of incessant grumbling and into one of deeper appreciation and contentedness.
Although it was my child who experienced a period of outward discontentment, I must admit to extended periods of inward (and sometimes outward) discontent within my own spirit. I think we can all relate. We go through a trial and we respond with frustration and extreme disappointment. An experience or life event doesn’t live up to our expectations and we sink into a depression. (Buyer’s remorse, anyone?) We watch someone else get something we think we deserve, and we fall into covetousness. Whatever the impetus, there are times in our lives—or maybe even our WHOLE lives—when we allow disappointment and discontent to dominate. We whine and we grumble and we ignore the beautiful blessings in our lives as we hyper-focus on what is missing.
Discontentment is more than just an annoying habit; it’s a character flaw that points to our failure to find joy, peace, and satisfaction in Christ. Discontent and its twin sisters, Grumbling and Covetousness, are the byproducts of misplaced priorities: they are the emotions that arise when we elevate circumstances and possessions to the place of idols in our lives. Those idols will always let us down, and that’s when discontentment creeps in.
James 3:16 tells us, “For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices” (AMPC version). In other words, discontentment isn’t satisfied with staying put inside our spirits; it spills into our words and actions and leads us to spiritual rebellion and other behaviors that are dishonoring to God. Discontentment is a symptom of a hardened heart, and it leads us to actions that further harden our hearts and close us off to hearing and serving our Creator.
So what’s the key to softening our hardened and damaged hearts? Gratitude and worship. To transform our discontent, we must turn away from worshipping earthly things and instead offer that worship to our Heavenly Father. Just as the solution to my child’s discontentment was to replace complaining with gratitude, we must stop pining after what we don’t have or ruminating over our disappointments and turn our focus toward all that we have been given through Christ.
Our pastor recently preached a sermon on a passage from Ephesians that reads, “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (Ephesians 4:18-19, ESV). The hard-hearted individuals that Paul is describing have been given over to sin. But, our pastor pointed out, their core problem is not with sin. They don’t have a SIN problem, they have a WORSHIP problem. They were worshipping the wrong things (i.e., anything other than God), and that was leading to hardened hearts that were thrown into a cycle of perpetual sin.
We, too, have a worship problem. And the solution is simple: we need to start worshipping God. Acknowledging who He is and what He has done. Giving thanks for our salvation and for the blessings He has given us. Glorifying Him and placing Him on the highest of pedestals. We solve our worship problem by deciding to worship God, and then acting wholeheartedly on that decision with every thought and action and moment in our lives.
The Christmas season, though meant to be a time spent celebrating Christ, can be a breeding ground for discontentment. Expectations are high. Consumerism is at its peek. It’s the best time of year, but that can also set us up for feeling the worst. Which is why I LOVE that Thanksgiving is our lead-in to the season. The Thanksgiving holiday is a dedicated opportunity to lay aside the resentments and the grumbling and the covetousness as we set our hearts on gratitude. We can intentionally recognize our blessings and, more importantly, we can acknowledge the Giver of those blessings—the one who is deserving of all of our worship.
Father, you alone are worthy of all of our worship and all of our praise. Please replace the false idols in our lives as we choose to worship you and you alone. Forgive us for our grumbling and our resentment. Help us to have eyes to see and a heart that knows that life with you is so much greater than any source of discontentment. We are grateful to you and for you. Thank you for being a gracious and merciful God who forgives mistakes and welcomes us into your arms, where we experience peace and comfort that transcend our understanding. We love you, God; thank you for loving us first.
*Please excuse the vague pronouns as I attempt to maintain this child’s anonymity.
