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Pursuing Contentment

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Godly Character: Contentment

Philippians 4:9-13 “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Contentment is about satisfaction, peace, and rest of soul: The person who is content in Scripture is like a weaned child or a sheep who is resting (Psalm 131). The opposite of contentment is striving, needing more, wanting more, and inwardly noisy. While contentment leads to peace, joy, trust, confidence, hard work, discontentment leads us to complaining, threatening, despair, contempt, manipulation, anger, and anxiety. 

Contentment is about Surrender: Growing in contentment means accepting the fact that God knows best, is best, and has richly provided you with everything you need to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:18).  Contentment is surrendering to God rather than yourself for leadership and rule over your life and the goals that you pursue.

Contentment is something we pursue by faith: Contentment is believing the promises of God actively even when you don’t want to. It is about trusting that God’s way is wiser, higher, and more joyful than what you might think is best. Contentment is also possible by faith as we trust that God cares, loves, and provides everything that we need. A lack of contentment might actually indicate a lack of belief that God des care for you, love you, and provide you with what you need.

Contentment is a process: We grow in contentment through life experiences. Paul says in Philippians 4 that he learned contentment.

Contentment is not about your circumstance or situation: Often times our solution to discontentment is to change our situation or circumstance. This is called striving. Learning contentment leads us to accept that God is the one who sovereignly places us in our circumstances. Learning contentment means having trust that we can learn contentment within any given situation. 

Paul tells us that it is necessary to learn contentment not only for circumstances that seem difficult and unwanted for us but also for circumstances that are agreeable and comfortable for us. In other words, contentment isn’t guaranteed in comfortable or wanted situations and it isn’t unattainable in uncomfortable or unwanted  circumstances. Paul suggests that suffering want and enjoying abundance both pose obstacles to contentment, which means contentment is a higher ideal to purse that transcends our circumstance.

Contentment is about knowing God:  True contentment is about coming to God and knowing God. In Psalm 23 the source of contentment for the sheep walking through the valley of the shadow of death is that you are with me. In 1 Timothy 6:18 we set our hope on God because it is he who provides. He alone is the source of our joy. You cannot find contentment or joy that comes with it if you have not learned to love God and enjoy his presence. 

Contentment is possible because of Jesus’ death and resurrection: Jesus has provided all of the protection, provision, and love that we could need through his death and resurrection. Nothing more is needed, nothing less would suffice. Psalm 23 suggests that Jesus is our good shepherd and therefore, it is possible to find contentment and rest for our souls in trusting the shepherd’s provision for his sheep whom he loves so much, he lays his life down for them.

We can say that contentment is a great Christian virtue that we should pursue by faith and obedience. With contentment the Christian finds the pathway to joy, rest, peace, perhaps even hope and patience. 

We can rejoice that Scripture tells us that we are created in the image of God. Serving God and bringing glory to him not only gives the Christian their purpose for living but it identifies the deepest purpose a any person could possible live for. 


The pursuit of virtue/character implies there is a purpose to live for. The marks of Godless and purposeless people is apathy, which is a lack of concern or care for anything. Apathetic people do not pursue virtue. Christian virtue, on the other hand, are merely the steps that a Christian takes in pursuit of a bigger goal: to serve God and his glory

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