Sep 27, 2021
Hi, I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One, and I love to talk about the Bible and I love to motivate myself and to help motivate you to live our faith on a daily basis. Today, I want to talk about Philippians chapter 4, verse 11.
I love to talk about Philippians chapter four, but I almost always stop at verse eight because in verse 11, I get exposed. I'm not a very content person. It says in verse 11, and this is just a fragment of the verse "I have learned to be content." As for who I am, I haven't learned to be very content. I struggle with discontentment all the time.
Paul is in prison writing to the Philippians, and he's thanking them for the gift that they sent to him. And he said, "I appreciate you sending the gift. I didn't really need it, because I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself." And that's a little bit of a paraphrase, because I've been reading all these different translations of this passage.
I appreciate the fact that Paul said that he was content, and he's in prison. I'm not content and I'm not in prison. I spend most of my day, every day “trying” to do something, and I use the air quotes there because I'm constantly “trying” to do something. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't learn to rest better; if I shouldn't learn to relax more.
My goal as a follower of Jesus always seems to be striving to do something else, instead of just trusting Jesus to do what He wants. We had a team meeting yesterday as I record this, and part of my discontent with that team meeting was the fact that I was trying to get us to do something that we clearly don't have the resources to do right now. I need to relax. "Mike it's not time," becomes a valid answer.
Today in your workplace, I want to challenge you to ask God to show you where you need to be in this whole discussion around contentment. Our contentment, our willingness to be involved and engaged, but to be sufficient, prepared and equipped and sufficient for the circumstances where we work and with the people that we interact every day.
That status of our life, that peace in our soul becomes a witness. Our contentment comes from what we know about the world. God is in charge. He's taking care of us, and He can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. Therefore, I should be content. I don't want to "should" all over myself, but in this particular case, I know for a fact that Lord, I want to be more content.
And so I hope that God will encourage you today to let your contentment show up. And then He will also encourage us. Each of us, me too. Let's let our contentment make a difference in the lives of the people that we work with today. I'm grateful that you're a marketplace minister. I'm grateful that you follow Jesus.
And I hope that these devotionals help you. But maybe you've discovered that because Mike is his own problem in this area - I'm my own source of discontentment all the time - that you don't want to listen to these devotionals anymore. I would understand, but I hope that our discontent in our present situation, turns us to God; that we turn to him and follow him and let him use us in the workplace, and be content with what he does for us and through us today.
Thank you so much for being a marketplace minister, take a check, take a chance. Take a minute - I'm stumbling around a little bit - and go check out our website followerofone.org, where you can sign up for the next marketplace mission trip. I hope that you can put your faith to work, that we can use the calling that Jesus has given us to make a difference in the lives of our friends.
Thanks very much for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for taking your faith to work. I appreciate it.