When you’ve concluded that what you already have on hand is enough, that it’s adequate—that it’s been deemed by God as sufficient—then you’re equipped and empowered to participate fully in the tasks set before you during this season of life. Paul described it like this:
God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
One thing leads to another. The more you believe that God’s grace to you is overflowing, the more you’ll be convinced that you will always have everything you need. And the more certain you are that you’ll never lack, the more willing and able you’ll be to give of yourself and your resources when called for because you’ll be certain God will always replenish your supply.
You can just bank on that. Your God can be trusted to grant you the supply you need to excel at His purposes. So if you don’t have it—whatever it is—it’s because you don’t need it. You may want it, but it’s not necessary in order to accomplish what He knows is most important for your life today. Otherwise He’d have given it to you. He loves you too much to “withhold the good from those who live with integrity” (Psalm 84:11).
Whatever He’s given or not given, He’s done for a specific reason—a reason known only to Him perhaps but one you can trust with full confidence, sight unseen. Every decision you need to make, every task you need to accomplish, every relationship you need to navigate, every element of daily life you need to traverse, God has already perfectly matched up with an equivalent-to-overflowing supply of His grace. If you don’t agree with that, then you either lack a proper appreciation for what you have, or you are doing things that you’re not supposed to be participating in right now.
You can always tell people who operate from a position of perceived lack and deficiency. They’re stingy with their time. They’re selfish with their resources. They’re tight fisted with their energy. They’re reluctant to sow of themselves into the lives of others because they’re afraid they don’t have enough to do it with and still have enough left over for themselves. Not enough time, energy, talent, money, skill, patience. They’re like my two-year-old, unwilling to share with his friends for fear he’ll run out of what he’s got.
But whenever we operate that way, the “every good work” that Paul outlines—the truly important tasks and relationships of life, the ones that promise blessing to us as well as to others—go unattended and undone. We’re not able to fully participate, much less excel in something, when we don’t feel like we have the proper amount, the proper brand, the proper type of resources with which to participate in the first place. So the “work” misses out on our touch, and we miss the many ways the “work” could touch us—the impact, the memories, the lessons, the experiences that God is knitting together to become a key part of our story.
God has already given enough. He always does.
And when you and I choose to recognize this and trust in His continued supply, we’ll be able to engage in life in a way we never have before. We’ll finally be living life to the fullest.
You’ve found the secret.
Now you can pass it on.
• A woman of contentment is aware of her needs and what God has already supplied to meet them. Begin your journey to contentment by making a list. Label one side “My Needs.” Label the other “God’s Provision.” Then match up your needs with the way God is currently meeting them. Place your list in a handy place for the times you are tempted to lean toward dissatisfaction.
• What might God be trying to grow in your character or cement in your relationship with Him by keeping you separated from some of the things you want but don’t yet have?
Overflowing Blessing
Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. (Luke 6:38 NLT)
“Use exact measurements.” That’s what my recipe card says. Emphasis on the word “exact.” I was given this list of instructions by a friend who not only shared her technique for baking the best bread I’ve ever tasted but also a jar of bread “starter” for me to keep in the refrigerator. Now I had the chance to see if I could match her abilities. To amaze my family with homemade bread. That kind of homemade bread. Like hers.
Once a week I go to the refrigerator and pull out the starter—a bubbling liquid concoction that serves as the foundation for this fabulous bread. Then I unfold the tattered piece of paper she gave me, and I carefully follow the written guidelines. These are extremely important, she told me.
Boy, was she ever right.
This bread is moody. It has a bit of an attitude problem. You’re never quite sure what sets it off, but one little bobble in the preparation process can keep the dough from rising properly or baking to a perfectly golden brown. You have to be careful.
As time has gone along, my kids have begun to help me with this, pulling their stools over to the counter, eager to dirty their hands in the kneading process. But before kneading, the flour must be added. Six cups, to be exact. And “exact” those scoops must be. I can now entrust this step into the hands of my six-year-old, who’s seen with his own eyes the kind of mood swings a loaf can exhibit when fed with too much or too little flour. He’s gotten this down to a science—a Luke 6:38 science: “a good measure—pressed down, shaken together.”
He reaches the utensil down into the airtight flour bin and collects “a good measure.” Nothing skimpy about the serving he’s gathered. Thankfully he’s still holding the measuring cup over the container because flour is spilling from the sides of his scoop. But knowing the need for just the right amount to be added to the ingredients, which are already poured and waiting in a nearby bowl, his tiny fingers secure a good grasp on the handle, and he gently “shakes” the cup.
I’ve explained to him that this shaking action eliminates the air pockets that can form underneath, occupying space that can still be filled with flour. By shaking it enough, he can be sure that every square inch of measuring cup is being used for his purpose.
Finally he puts his other hand on top of the mound and pats gently to make sure it is “pressed down.” Inevitably he finds that the cup can now hold more than before. So he continues to add flour, leveling it off until he determines it’s as full as possible. Then he pours the scoop into the mixing bowl.
Six times he does this. Scoop, shake, press down. Scoop, shake, press down. There’s only one part of the biblical directions his illustration is lacking. And it’s the part that compels us to choose contentment over discontentment every day: “a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over.”
It appears there’s nothing exact about God’s recipe of return to us. His gifts are overflowing. He’s not stingy with His goodness or ungenerous with His supply. When you choose to give, He promises you’ll have enough—more than you think—filling you back up with even more than you had to begin with. Not just a good measure, not just one that’s been pressed down and shaken together—not even one that’s fair, equal to what you deserve—but one that is brimming over, unable to be contained by its recipient.
Now, by no means am I suggesting that you should always and without question give of yourself at the expense of the relationships and purposes that should be prioritized in your life. Sometimes the best, most empowering word you can learn to utter is no. But on those occasions when you do feel genuinely led by God to give, you needn’t be worried about what appears to be a dwindling amount of personal resources to suit the task. If He has endorsed your involvement, you can proceed with complete contentment and willingness, knowing He will always give back far more than you ever expended. The contented woman, when required to give of her time, her love, her resources . . . herself . . . is secure in the knowledge that she possesses enough to do it. And she looks forward to experiencing the promise of an outlandish return on her in
vestment.
I can imagine what you may be thinking because I’ve thought it too . . .
My energy level is so low.
My “love tank” is running so close to empty, I’m sure I’m about to stall.
It’s only Tuesday, but my patience quota has already been used up for the week.
My wallet is even emptier than I remember, and my financial needs aren’t going away.
Yet just when you feel as though you’re completely void of anything worthwhile to offer, or when your situation makes you feel justified in not being the one to participate, you’ll often hear Him whispering . . .
“Give, and it will be given to you.”
And when He scoops up the dividends that He’ll be sending back your way, He won’t be short and scanty about it. He won’t skim off the excess or be bound by an “exact” measurement. He will supply you a portion that is abundantly good and beyond what is warranted. He’ll shake and press, shake and press, to make sure no pockets of air are taking up space reserved for His blessing. And then He’ll pile up His favor and grace into such a rounded heap that it will spill off the sides, more than you can hold. Your hands and heart will try to grasp every morsel that falls from your full container, but there will be too much coming, far too fast.
Good thing you’ve got a lap. For on it will fall the abundance you cannot gather any other way, the surplus for which there is no more space. And it just keeps coming and coming.
This is the reward for the woman resolved to contentment.
So “give, and it will be given to you; a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over—will be poured into your lap.”
It appears that the best way to get more of what you need is to give away the little you think you have left—at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. Yes, the best way to be surprisingly satisfied is to be irrationally released to respond to God’s promptings to serve, even when doing so seems impossible because of your perceived lack.
So make the resolution—the resolution to be content. Then look toward heaven with holy anticipation, and sit with your long skirt gathered up in folds and draped loosely across your lap, prepared to catch the overflow in the welcome pockets of room you’ve created. Live this moment. Pour yourself out. Drain the experience of each precious day. And be prepared for God’s overflowing blessing.
• When you consider your level of willingness to give of yourself, does it reveal more contentment or discontentment residing in your heart? In what way?
• Based on God’s provisions that you listed at the end of the last chapter, what is one thing you could close this book and go do for someone else out of that resource?
• Record your thoughts regarding this statement: “Sometimes the best, most empowering word you can learn to utter is no.”
The Balancing Point
Hopefully your eyes have been opened to realize how many needs God has already met in your life that you’ve been discounting. Yet I’m fully aware that your list of unmet wants may still be extensive as well. So possibly this clarion call to live satisfied with what God has already given feels almost like admitted defeat—a resignation to the status quo, a life of mediocrity. Maybe it feels as if choosing contentment is a simultaneous choice to quell your desires and silence your future aspirations, to quit ever hoping for more.
On the contrary, contentment is the equilibrium between the enjoyment of life now and the anticipation of what is to come. Contentment serves as a guard against desires gone wild. It is the key to unlock you from the bondage of unrestrained longing that wells up within your heart and inevitably begins to control your life, making you a slave to what you don’t have instead of a fully engaged participant with what you do. It is the faith-filled belief that what God has bestowed now is worthy of gratitude and appreciation, not merely because it is enough but because it is good.
By choosing contentment, you’re not getting rid of your desires; you’re just demanding that they assume an appropriate, humble position in your life, not bossing you around like a tyrannical dictator forcing you to submit to his ever-growing and ever-changing list of demands. It means you no longer allow your yearnings and aspirations to control you, to rob from you the full use of and gratitude for what you’ve currently been given, leaving you unable to enjoy this because He hasn’t seen fit to give you that.
Making this resolution of contentment will offer you an opportunity to look forward to tomorrow with peace and ease and an appropriate level of anticipation instead of the frustration and hurriedness that often accompanies our glances toward the future. It will be your ticket to live with goals and ambitions inspired by His expansive, mind-blowing will, without having to sacrifice today’s blessing.
In staying surprisingly satisfied, you actually receive the best of both worlds. You give yourself permission to enjoy fully the things you have, the person you are, and the life you’re currently living while continuing to harbor the dreams that keep you growing and stretching into the future.
So the businessperson gets to relish today’s accomplishments while at the same time having high expectations for tomorrow. The homemaker learns to thrive on the joyful chaos of today’s tasks while calmly, patiently looking forward to the slower pace her future may hold. The single woman is actually able to enjoy her independence—not just pretend she does—and yet be equally excited about what sharing life with a future mate may be like. She neither has to abandon hope of marriage nor cave to those depressing tinges of self-pity and emptiness.
It’s a balance. A holy equilibrium. A genuine gratitude for what the day brings, all the while maintaining a controlled anticipation for what tomorrow may offer.
That’s the safe, healthy place where contentment allows you to take root and take up residence. Instead of being manipulated by unrestrained discontent, instead of allowing restlessness to hustle you into decisions, relationships, and opportunities that you’re unable to recognize as being faulty from the outset, contentment keeps your mind clear. Peaceful. Settled. Undisturbed. Happy to be here, and when God determines the time is right, happy to be there.
It’s a resolution to be satisfied.
It’s a resolution that will change your life.
• Go back and reread your answers and comments from the questions in this section. Then read the resolution you are about to make. Pray about it. Sit with it a while. Rest in it. Even if you’re exhausted from life’s challenges and demands, make this a moment to breathe deep and savor what God is inviting you into, what He’s asking you to give and what He’s promising to supply you in order to do it. When you’re ready, make this resolution out loud, maybe even in the presence of someone who can help hold you accountable to it. Then sign your name below it.
SURPRISINGLY SATISFIED
I do solemnly resolve to embrace my current season of life and will maximize my time in it. I will resist the urge to hurry through or circumvent any portion of my journey but will live with a spirit of contentment.
__________
PURPOSEFULLY FEMININE
A resolution to be champion biblical femininity
Pretty in Print?
A reporter for the New York Times Magazine sat across from my husband and me at a local Panera Bread restaurant. And shockingly, gratefully, we were at ease.
We’d scheduled this meeting months earlier, and I’d been concerned ever since. This wasn’t some local media outlet or cable-access news channel with a narrow demographic. This was the New York Times. “The Gray Lady.” All 160 years of her. They wanted to do a story on the women’s role in both the home and church, and somehow they had decided that this expanded Sunday article should feature Jerry and me as its central characters.
Seriously?
We weren’t quite sure what to think about this or why they’d choose to highlight a couple like us. Sounded a bit like a possible trap—setting us up to parody as outdated relics with anachronistic viewpoints, people who had turned a blind eye to
the advancements of women in the modern age. It was hard for me to imagine any scenario where this major secular news outfit wasn’t going to paint our beliefs and practices as being weird and obsolete, and us along with them.
For days and weeks prior to this face-to-face meeting, I had stewed over how to prepare myself, certain that whatever I said was going to be misrepresented, misunderstood, taken out of context, written in a way that was misleading. Even as the hour approached, I braced myself for a tyrant of a reporter, antagonistic, snarling, eager to attack not only my views on being feminine in the twenty-first century but also my marriage.
So I was shocked when a pleasant, dark-haired woman with a slight build arrived with a big smile, hugged me instead of shaking hands, and jumped into a conversation filled with easy, casual banter. This reporter wasn’t intimidating at all. She was just a brilliant journalist and writer on the cusp of a new marriage herself, admittedly covering this story as much for the new role she was about to undertake personally as for her reporting responsibilities. I was captivated by her questions on everything from our views on Christianity, theology, and the history of women in the church to the intimate nuances of our own relationship and my take on what it means to have biblically based femininity in a postfeminist culture. Finding her so easy to talk with, I relaxed and settled into our conversation.
Nearly six months later the article hit newsstands. Its headline read, “Housewives of God,” and it went on for eight pages with an in-depth discussion of women in general but our marriage and ministry in particular and how our belief system—a biblical one, built on the husband’s leadership role and the wife’s position as a yielded partner—fleshed itself out in our home.
The Resolution for Women Page 3
