Dealing with discontentment

There were two teardrops floating down the river of life.

One teardrop said to the other,

“Who are you?”

The teardrop answered. “I’m a teardrop from a girl who loved a man and lost him. And who are you?”

“I’m a teardrop from the girl who got him.”

 Like in this story, in life, we go after things thinking they will make us content only to find that after we got them we aren’t better off than we were when we didn’t have them.

If the girl who lost the guy met with the girl who got him maybe, she will realize she dodged a bullet. If the girl who got him would meet the girl who lost him maybe, she would realize she got a gem  (there is a joke in here somewhere).

What does it mean to be content?  Let us define it the way God’s word defines it:

Contentment is having a heart that is at rest from knowing that we are right with God and that…in all seasons…in all situations…. God is in control of everything that happens to us.

Like the psalmist says, “The righteous man shall not be moved; He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; His heart is firmly fixed, trusting in the lord.”(Psalms 112:7)

This is contentment, when your heart is fixed on trusting God, it doesn’t matter what comes your way.

Sometimes, contentment can be an elusive chase. Because we might find that we are content, today then, something happens to us tomorrow and our contentment goes out the window.

Here are some few ways that I do to deal with discontentment;

Thanksgiving and praise

This was King David’s secret of being content.

I am in pain and in distress; may your salvation O God, protect me.

I will praise God’s name in a song and magnify Him with thanksgiving. (Psalms 69:29-30)

David had a revelation he could choose to either magnify his pain and distress or magnify God.  He chose the latter.

How did he magnify God?

He brought Him a song of praise and thanksgiving.

He is pain…. He is in distress…But instead of magnifying his pain and distress by focusing on it, he shifts his focus on the goodness of God.

He takes a different road and instead of looking at what he didn’t have, He thanked Him for what he did have.  

 Something changes whenever I do this. Suddenly I see things I didn’t see before. I see the little day-to-day miracles. All of a sudden all my blessings are brought to light… I see His joy… I see His provision for things I don’t even need yet I have them ….I see His unfailing love, sometimes, through other people; I see His goodness in the answered prayers.

Praise is a deliberate consideration of God’s attributes and choosing to dwell on them.

So go ahead consider His Amazing attributes and choose to dwell on them.

Learn to be content

Contentment is not a gift of the Holy Spirit that we can pray for and unexpectedly wake up one day contented.  It’ something we learn,  it’s more like a fruit, it has to be cultivated , it has to be watered ,it has to be grown(ouch!). Paul exemplifies this for us.

I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.(Philippians 4:12)

It dint come naturally to him; He dint wake up one day and behold contentment had stole up on him. He had to learn day in day out, situation by situation. It was a process.

Maybe we need to make a choice and decide we will be content no matter where we find ourselves. If we are single, we will be content; if we get married, we will be content. If we have jobs we love, we will be content; if we don’t like our jobs we will be content anyway. If we get to live our dreams, we will be content; if we never get to live our dreams, we will still be content.

Let us learn how to be and grow in contentment. Subsequently, we will find ourselves enjoying God’s blessings more. We will no longer live in regret of the time we wasted because we were busy looking somewhere else.

Change of perspective

 Sometimes, we find ourselves discontented because we are looking at things from the wrong perspective. A change of perspective would probably make a huge difference.

Here is an example.

A woman who wakes up one day and thinks, “This house is a mess, I will never be able to rest today. My husband and kids are ungrateful and lazy.”

Same woman wakes up the next day and thinks, “I live in a nice house, and I can rest if I want to, my husband works hard to pay the bills, my kids are a gift from God and I am not alone.”

I bet you that her two days will be as different as day and night. Why? Because what she chooses to focus on sets the tone for her day.

Here is a fact; a discontented single will make a discontented spouse. A discontented employee will make a discontented boss. A discontented woman without a child will be a discontented mother.

Other times, we think that if things will change then we will be content and happy.

A man shared a room with nine other people.  Troubled, he goes to see his pastor for some advice

He says, “Life is unbearable; there are nine of us living in the same room. What can I do?”

His pastor tells him, “Take your goat into the room with you.”

He was a bit skeptical but his pastor insisted, “Do as I say and come back in a week.”

A week later, the man returned looking even more flustered than before.

“We can’t stand it. The goat is filthy.” He told his pastor.

His pastor said, “Go home and take the goat out, then come back in a week.”

A week later the man returned joyful and exclaimed, “Life is beautiful! We enjoy every minute now that there is no goat. It’s just the nine of us now.

Sometimes, all we need is a different outlook and our situation doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

War Room (movie): five Lessons on prayer.

I got the opportunity to watch the movie War Room in January.  Before this, all my friends were talking about it and I couldn’t wait to watch it.  I cried, laughed, cried a little more and was inspired in that order. War Room has been my favorite movie this year.

War room isn’t just about getting you entertained; though it manages to do that, it is also a movie about the power of prayer.

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If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. (2 chronicles 7:14)

Prayer at its most basic level is humility. Its telling God I can’t do this on my own, I need your help. In this verse, He has promised us… if we will humble ourselves…if we will pray, then He will answer us.

From this movie, I gleaned so much on fighting …God’s way and winning battles on my knees

1. This is my favorite place; I call it the war room.

  

She has cleared out her closet and made it into a prayer closet.

When you pray, go into your most private room and, closing the door, pray to your father, who is in secret; and your father, who sees in secret, will reward you in the open. (Matthew 6:6)

A prayer closet is a place that creates an intimate atmosphere where God can come and meet us.  It’s my way of saying “I have made a place for you, come join me.” And every time I enter into this place, He is always there waiting for me to show up. It makes prayer all the more special.

It doesn’t have to be limited to just a room, it could be out in nature maybe a favorite spot by the river, or by the trees. Wherever you feel most comfortable at. That should be your prayer closet.

Make Him a special place in your life and see if He won’t come and fill it.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and him with me. (Revelation 3:20)

2. Victory will not come by accident. It’s intentional and it’s deliberate.

Imagine a soldier who goes to war without preparing. He sure won’t be expecting to bring home the spoils.

To do combat in prayer, one has to develop a strategy for victory.We don’t get into spiritual warfare without a strategy. The enemy will take us out. In prayer, God gives us the strategy for victory as we submit ourselves to Him.

Here is an example,

And the Lord said to Joshua; see I have given Jericho, its king and its mighty men, into your hands.

You shall march around the enclosure. This you shall do for 6 days and on the 7^th day you shall march around the enclosure 7 times and the priests shall blow the trumpets. When you hear the trumpets, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of Jericho shall fall down in its place. (Joshua 6:2-5)

When Joshua followed God’s strategy, he had victory over Jericho.

What an unusual way to fight.  But God doesn’t think like us or work the way that we expect Him to.

I imagine the men going back home and their wives asking,

“Honey what did you do today?”

“Well, we went around the wall of Jericho.”

“Did anything happen?”

“No. nothing happen not even a stone moved.”

It must have looked foolish but on the 7^th time of the 7^th day the wall of Jericho came tumbling down and Israel got their victory.

God will often give us an illogical instruction before a miracle.

Sometimes, you might have to do something that goes against logic but when you trust God and obey, you will see amazing results.

3. Prayer is first and for most surrender. The goal of prayer is never to change God’s mind about what you want. The goal of prayer is to realign your heart with what He wants to do, for His Glory. Prayer changes the person who prays.

This I learnt the hard way. For a period of time I felt called to intercede for my future husband (check it here). It didn’t take long for me to realize that the call to pray was more for me to surrender to God’s plan than it was for him.

Yes, there was a need to stand in the gap for him but before I could do that, God realigned, my heart with his will.

Until we surrender, we will just keep going around the same mountains over and over.

In surrendering our will, we get God’s will for our lives and finally realize we have actually received what we were really looking for all along.

I see prayer as an invitation from God to come and be changed.  He beckons us, “Come and see the way I see things. Come and look through the lenses of my eyes.  Come and look at it from a different perspective.

 We now have a different picture, the people we thought needed changing don’t anymore (if they change its fine if they don’t its fine too) because we saw that a change was needed in us too. The circumstance that we once hated isn’t so bad because our perspective has changed.

Our perception has changed, and we discover it is in our ability to change the valley of weeping into a place of springs.

4. When we pray we get to participate in what God is doing on earth. We become co-laborers with God. He wants us to participate in His plan of drawing people to Himself. He wants us to collaborate with him. What a privilege!

This is what intercession is all about us working together with God to see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It’s here we learn that we cannot do God’s job and He sure will not do our part.

  We understand the authority given to us, and the responsibility that comes with that authority.

Here is our authority.

Behold I give you authority and power to trample over serpents and scorpions ,and over all the power that the enemy possesses ; and nothing shall in any way harm you. (Luke 10:19)

Here is our responsibility.

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, the things you don’t allow on earth will be the things that God doesn’t allow. The things you allow on earth will be the things that God allows. (Matthew 16:19)

Now the million-dollar questions.

What are you allowing in your life that you shouldn’t be allowing?

Have you allowed the devil to rule your life?

When you allow strife in your house, you are allowing the enemy to rule. When you allow disease to be in your body, you are allowing the enemy to reign.  When you allow the enemy to destroy relationships that God has ordained for you to have, you are allowing him to rule. When you allow him to steal all your joy, he is indeed reigning in your life.

Get in your prayer closet, release the Authority that God has already given you, and tell the devil to exit from your life. Crying won’t change it, begging God won’t change it; pleading with the devil won’t do it. The only thing that changes it is by releasing your authority on earth.

5. Its in prayer that we learn that sometimes the best gifts is not only the easy times when everything is going our way. The best gifts come to us sometimes, disguised as painful, heart wrenching trouble.

When all you have are questions more than answers; when things seem to be getting worse the more you pray. That’s when God is really up to something because God’s initial goal for us is not to keep us comfortable and contented, but to make us like His Son. We wait for the miracles and the breakthroughs and those are good. However, right in the middle of it, God is looking at us and saying she is looking more and more like my Son.

For those whom He foreknew. He also destined from the beginning to be molded into the image of His Son (to share inwardly His likeness), that He might become the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)

The person who cultivates a prayer life, will have victory for a lifestyle.