Contentment

Contentment

True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.

1 Timothy 6:6

When I was growing up, a perfect summer day meant riding my bicycle to the library. I would also set up a “house” for my dolls under the tall bushes near the back fence. There were trips to the lake, where I’d float on my back and stare up at the blue sky. There were no video games in the 1970s. No malls near me. No all-day cartoons to keep me entertained, and yet life was good. The same can be said of an Amish childhood.

These children’s days are not given shape by a lineup of soccer games, piano lessons, camp, or play groups. Instead, the morning sun, chore-time twice a day, and the coming of evening set a structure for their time. So, too, do the days of the week and the seasons. In this largely rural, soil-anchored world, life follows the lead of the weather and the promise of productive fields and gardens. The children are not removed from this daily interplay with nature. They learn it, they begin to sense it and read it alongside their parents, who interpret what is happening while they go about their jobs, who point out the signals as they come, who invite their children to join them in responsive work.

Not dulled by television or computers, not distracted by telephones, these children grow to be keenly alert both to the natural environment and to the interests of their church community. They are fully occupied but not frenzied. They learn a contentment still available to those who focus their energies on the earth and its requirements, who devote themselves to giving and receiving from others.

When you were growing up, where did you find the most contentment? Has your life grown easier or better from all the wonderful things you added? Or do you sometimes realize that more is really less?

With God, it’s possible to be content wherever we are, with whatever we have. Sometimes it takes looking back at our childhood to realize that simpler is better—for ourselves, our children, and our whole lives.

Dear heavenly Father, strip me down. Transform my heart so that it becomes easy to hand off all the unnecessary elements of my life that draw away my focus from the simple things.