Contentment Podcast Episodes

But even in the midst of whatever it is, he is there, and he holds us and not only holds us, he loves and wants the best ultimately for us. Welcome friends to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. It’s excellent to have you along as always. With me, I’ve got Tom Waldbeser and Isaac Funk to have this conversation with me and I look forward to that. 

Thanks, brothers, for agreeing to this and coming on. Yeah, for sure. Looking forward to the conversation together. Yeah, I’m definitely glad to be here and with a topic like today I know that I can personally learn a lot from what contentment is. I think we all come to the conversation with a degree of understanding of what it is we’re talking about, but let’s tease out this term out a little bit. 

Tom, I see contentment as more of a state of mind. Obviously, it branches into many different areas, kind of who we are in our attitude and all of those things. But I think there’s a huge component that involves thanksgiving and living within your means. And so anyway, you can see how broad it is and there are so many aspects that play into what it means to be content or to have contentment. 

So, yeah, my first goes to contentment with material things. And I think that’s just because the world that we live in is just so bent on getting you to feel discontent with the things that you do or don’t have. But if I were to try to define contentment simply, it might be something like, well, I’ll define a content person. 

A content person is somebody who genuinely believes that they are safely within God’s care. I think that it’s really difficult to be thankful, like you were saying before, Tom, if I don’t already believe that God is good to me and that he takes care of me. And so that then broadens my view of contentment beyond the material into circumstances, into my life itself, my relationships. 

Now you really took a fork in the road that I think is worth pausing on, Isaac. You know, you’ve really posited contentment in a spiritual conversation, right? A spiritual reality. A Christian reality. Let’s take that a little bit further, and maybe that’s what you mean by separating it from material, because I think we would all agree that there are people that attempt or seem to be quite content, or perhaps more content than I am, without a Christian worldview or without faith at all. 

So, I’d love to hear your thoughts a little bit more about that as you work out those differences. Yeah, I think what comes to mind for me while Isaac’s thinking is really, I love how you catch that in abiding in Jesus. And I really think Jesus hit this head on in the Sermon on the Mount and then many of the other teachings in the Bible, you know, where he talks about not taking thought for tomorrow and all of those aspects.  

We can’t add to our stature. We can’t change how we look; how tall we are. Those are physical attributes that we have been created with and he couches all of that or ends all that in summation and says, basically seek the kingdom of God. And I will take care of you. That goes back to what Isaac said, when we rest in God, he’s a good God, he will provide. That’s exactly, I think, what Jesus was communicating. I have all of that, by the way, you can’t really change a lot of it, at least not in the major aspects of it, but seek me and trust in me and I will take care and do all the rest. 

So, contentment really has a lot to do with control is the way that you’ve explained it. There is an element of understanding what we can and cannot control. It’s interesting that Christ put it in those terms that you can’t add to your stature. You can’t do these types of things so therefore… Which I do think is pretty instructive as we think about our own contentment. Part of that work would be having a good understanding of what we do and don’t control and our own limitations. 

My mind just goes to Philippians 4 where Paul is talking about him being content, even materially, but also then in any circumstance, having contentment and learning contentment in all circumstances. And he says that in verse 12, and then the verse after that, where he says, I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength. 

That becomes key to me and a difference maker between those who we might see who it’s not even a Christian reality for them. They don’t know God or receive these things from his hands knowingly, but as Christians, that’s where our contentment comes from. Its source is God and the strength that he gives, the power that he gives. 

I think that really makes all the difference. I think there’s really a couple powerful truths with that, and I’d love to hear, Tom, you respond to this. I think the hope in that particular Scripture of Paul saying, I’ve learned to be content, that this is a learned reality. And those things that are learned are very, very hopeful, and that is, if we’re not at a place where we should be, we can get there through training, teaching experiences. 

And Tom, I’d love to hear about your experience. Have you found that in your life? Contentment is something that God has grown in you and I would love to hear a little bit of what that growth looks like. Well, I certainly like to think that he’s growing it in me. Sometimes I wonder, but no, the Apostle Paul is obviously a very gifted writer and orator and expressive and obviously it was the Spirit of God who helped him to do that. 

But learning, so if I just boil it down to the learning part, where he says, I have learned what sort of state I am, you know, to be content in that place. And usually when we’re learning, it’s not when everything is just going absolutely wonderfully, everything’s going to our plan. That’s typically, at least in my life, not where I’m learning the most, especially about contentment. 

We may seem contented when everything’s going our way, but I think with the Apostle Paul, as he wrote the letter to that church, he was in prison and in chains and had every right and reason to, we might say, not be content or at least wish for a better situation to be able to use as a platform. 

So, I think we can see from that in our own lives and in my life personally. There’s definitely been learning. You learn along the way, all through your journey, of what it means to be content. Obviously, that comes through many failures. Finding myself in a place of discontent and lest you think that’s all in the past, even just recently, God brought me through another experience that really helped me to understand again, that he has this, that I can just rest and be content. 

And it was a situation at work. I obviously, well, maybe not obviously, but I have been employed for a long time. That means I’m old and with the same employer. Anyway, for the last year and a half or so, I was asked to do a role that was implied that it would lead to a new position, essentially, that I would then walk into after experiencing it and doing it and helping the team for the year and a half. 

Well, it came to the end of that time period and the management team had other ideas and decided they were going to interview for this position, which they invited me to do that, but they ended up going in a different direction. And so, I was really like, okay, I invested a year and a half in this and was lead to believe that I would attain at the end of that time period. So, I went through a period of time, hours, and maybe even days that I was trying to sort through this that happened and as I just was quiet before the Lord and during that time period, I could see in my heart, I felt entitled to that role, even though, I mean, you could argue that you were told that that would happen. 

It was still a sense of entitlement that I had. And God had really just caused me to pause and to see that he has this, and you know what, there are greater purposes here. If you get that role, you’re going to be tied down way more at work than you have been already. And that’s not really your trajectory. You want to spend time and other things with family and church and your other responsibilities. And he just helped me to really see that he had this and, and that I could just really release it. So, I’m still learning what it means to be content in the midst of disappointment, trial, and entitlement. 

So, I’m just thinking about then in my own experience of trying to learn this thing and learning it over and over again. Perhaps too, and I think at the core of it, is probably because the road to contentment is one that encounters much pain. And so, I think that road starts with when you’re first honest, I think that would be the first step being honest with yourself to say, I have the tinge of discontentment or whatever you want to label that. 

And then it’s important to actually follow that through. Because a lot of us, obviously myself included, we want to grow. We want to learn these good things to be content, to be at peace, to be joyful people, to be free people. But we often don’t want to go through the pain that would help us to grow in those areas, because it’s really difficult to face ourselves. To sometimes face our own sin or to face the sin of other people that has impacted us is difficult. 

But we have to be able to face that pain. And more importantly, allow God to face that pain with us. We can’t allow ourselves to hide it from him. At the risk of going off on too much of a tangent here, I think we’ve become really skilled at putting on that Sunday smile, that Sunday face and acting like we’re flawless people above real and serious pain in our lives. 

But it’s really important that we’re honest and genuine, being able to follow that pain that has been brought, and not to be afraid of that darkness, but to go into it with the strength of God that we might find light. I have this picture in my mind of a match being lit in a dark room, enter into that darkness with full confidence that at the end of it, that light will break forth like that, and these things take time, they don’t happen instantaneously. But it’s the road to contentment.  

Isaac, I really think you’re on to something really important there, in terms of the pain. And part of learning contentment is to face that pain and to dig down to the roots of it. And so, Brother Tom, can we go back to your example? Sure. You were confronted with pain. 

What was the pain? And as you followed it down to the roots where did it lead you? That’s a really good question, and I’m not sure I still fully understand all, but I think as I really looked at it, dashed expectations were part of it. I think also pride. I mean, if I’m honest with myself, I was very visible in the role it was with many of my peers and others, and there was an expectation that they had too that it would happen. 

And so they came to me and asked, what happened? And so there, I think there was pride. There were certainly broken and missed expectations or lost expectations. I think it is actually a sense of loss in some sense, when we have our heart set in a certain direction. And I had certainly bathed it in prayer the whole time, even for the last year and a half. So, it’s not like I felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. And I know there was a purpose to it. I learned a lot. So yeah, I guess I would boil it down to pride and just the pain of loss and missed expectations. I think broken expectations are absolutely painful. 

It’s like somebody who had a dream for their life. And then things didn’t quite turn out that way. Maybe they became a victim of malpractice and now they’re paralyzed. They didn’t get the man or woman that they intended to marry. They didn’t get voted into the leadership or teaching position at their church. 

Whatever it is, all these dreams that people have that break. There’s a real very real and deep pain in that and as you said too, Tom, I love that it was bathed in prayer, which would give you even greater confidence that then God was able to use all of that. Not that God causes us pain, but that he is intent in not wasting any of it. 

Right. I really like this image, Isaac, you painted of a dark room when you face that pain and light a match. And so, when you light a match, you see things clearly for what they are, and you get your bearings again. Tom, if you would, when the match is lit in this place in your life, what is it that you see more clearly now that is able to bring you to a place of contentment? 

That my Father has it all in his hands, that he was guiding the whole time. And it was not a surprise to him that the outcome was as it was. And not only that, but that he did it because he loves me and he wanted the best, absolute best for me, even though I didn’t see it in that moment of pain and loss, and I think that’s true but not to minimize real pain that was felt. 

I mean, this was, in the scheme of things, this was very minor. I mean, I don’t want to give the impression to anyone that’s listening that I understand their deep pain because I certainly don’t, but I think that the lesson still holds that even in the midst of whatever it is, he is there and he holds us and not only holds us, but he also loves and wants the best ultimately for us. And like Isaac said, there are no wasted experiences. There are no wasted pains or joys. They’re all meant to first be glorifying to him. And then just to hone and shape us in the image of Christ. And I really don’t want to minimize those things either, because if contentment isn’t in my every day, if it’s not all pervasive and not just when the big storm comes, then I don’t know, I would be suspicious of it. I think when it can be something constant through life, the strength of the Lord giving us that joy, that peace. I like the idea that even in seemingly small things to some people, God actually cares about those things very, very deeply. 

I’m seeing here that the contentment that we’re talking about here is not so much a state. That’s the new thing. That’s the new way of being able to do without, which is a quality some people have. I mean, they don’t need an attached garage or a garage opener. That was my grandma and grandpa. They didn’t need, so there is this ability to go without, which is admirable. 

But the example that you gave, Tom and Isaac, as you’ve talked about it, you’re talking about an individual who’s drawing life from a different source. That makes them predisposed to be able to do some things. We would say that is contentment, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. 

Yeah, I think that really is just such a vital aspect of this, if not the whole of it. Contentment is very much a byproduct of your relationship to God, your relationship with God. So, what is it that we’re drawing on from God? I think of a picture of the most loving relationship that you have is one where there is rest with one another. There is a lack of striving with one another. That deep love displays itself in that way. The opposite of that is you can imagine trying to live with someone who 24/7 was upset or discontented about something. 

You can imagine how wearying and terrible that experience might be and even damaging. But when you have a relationship that’s more like just falling in love, I think the byproduct of that is contentedness. I just like that picture for myself anyway, if I can fall in love with Jesus. Then I know he has me, and I know that he takes care of me. 

Tom, I’d love for you to speak to that. And I think it was in your testimonies, you talked about the father having this. Yeah. When I came to that, it was in my daily time with the Lord and just that time where we just rest in his presence and listen to him. And that’s what it was. I mean, I was being quiet before the Lord, which is not always a practice that I do every day, necessarily. 

Obviously, I spend time with him but just to be quiet before him, I think that situation, which I’ve practiced that discipline in the past and try to do it occasionally, but I found it very beneficial, especially at that moment in time, again, just to listen and to hear. And that’s when it came through clearly what he was trying to share in the whole situation. 

And I love the verses Isaac shared in Philippians and that, as he said, that ends with basically our strength coming from Christ. But in Timothy, when he was writing about this as well, he said, godliness with contentment is great gain. And then he reminds us that we didn’t bring anything into the world and we’re not going to carry anything out and just that picture of having our hands open and our hearts open and Lord, we’re your servants. 

I mean, even our jobs, our marriages, everything we are serving, and it’s a gift from God at the end of the day. And if he chooses to give or to take or how that all works, it’s all in his hand and it should just cause us to rest and love him more. Tom, maybe you have answered this already, but I would be interested to know what you heard him say in those moments of silence. 

Just to show you the dark spot I was in prior to that time, I had called my boss and had a heart to heart and basically just shared this was a huge shock. Basically, I told him that, okay, well, everything I’m doing, I will transition now to, you know, I was kind of like done. And so that’s the state just to show you where I was at as I came before the Lord. 

And it was frankly one morning, I don’t know, several days after I had finished reading and praying. And I was just like, in my mind were all these things going on at work. And I just stopped, and I just paused. And I think I did say a prayer like, Lord, just help me understand. I want to see. 

And basically, he just came and that still small voice just assured me, first of all, of his love and like, I’m in control. You’d prayed. And then he brought back to my mind, basically some of the other prayers I had prayed previously about, Lord, I don’t want to be encumbered overly at work. I want this to be a vessel, but I also want to have the time to do other things in your kingdom and for you. 

And I kind of lost view of some of those previous prayers in the midst of this expectation of this job. And he really brought that back and said, you know, remember that I’m doing this because it will be best. You’re going to have more time to focus on other things and but it was just very powerful and a reassurance in that moment to the point where I called my boss within an hour or two after that and I just apologized and I just shared it with him. I said, you know, the Lord just really showed me that this is what he wants, and I’ll be fully supportive. Tell me what is next, and it just allowed me to be in a much different place. Yeah. I don’t know if that answers it, Matt.  

It does. I’d like to place my finger on something, and then Isaac, I’d love your comment on this. You asked for understanding, Tom, and that makes so much sense. We very often ask, you know, I could be content if I just understood. And there is some contentment that comes by way of understanding. I want to say that there is some contentment there. But that’s not the first thing the Lord told you. He didn’t give you understanding. As you said it, you felt his love. Right. Right. It was actually something that you possessed that allowed contentment, which is an oxymoron, kind of, right? 

That we are content by way of possession. I’m going to be provocative and say, I think we are content by way of possession. You possessed the love of God. Even when you thought understanding would give you that contentment, you found a possession. So, Isaac, speak to that possession part of what a believer possesses. 

I really like the way you put that, actually. That’s my possession. Jesus is my dear Savior, brother, friend, Lord, King, and on and on. When I ask him to fill those needs, more often than not, we find him showing up, and we find that we need nothing more. And this is where I’m going to interrupt my conversation with Tom and Isaac on the topic of contentment, I promise we’ll be back to finish, and I hope you can join us. 

There is no need that we could possibly have that he could not fulfill because he is at the base of it all. Welcome back friends to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Delighted to have you along to finish the conversation that I’m having with Isaac Funk and Tom Waldbeser on the topic of contentment. 

He is behind every mossy stone that you turn over along this journey. He is in every dark room that you would enter. And every now and then he’ll light that match and you’ll get a glimpse of that glory, of that beauty. And when those times come, they can be fleeting sometimes, but it’s really important that we notice them, and grab hold of them. 

When we realize that our lover, Jesus, is the superior owner of everything, or is the completeness that we strive for, there is some offloading of ourselves to him. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. Yeah. I love that connection you just made there. That makes that really come alive. Offloading our dreams, our desires, our wants into him, knowing that he fulfills them, that he has them and that he can reform them and give them back to us if he wants to do that. And he does do that, I think sometimes, but, yeah, that’s beautiful. It’s kind of a different view on the cast your cares on him because he cares for you verse of sometimes, we think of care as just, you know, these heavy burdens and things, but like Isaac just said, sometimes maybe that’s our dreams or expectations or other knowing that he cares for us. 

So yeah, it’s beautiful. Tom, you dropped a word earlier in your testimony that I think really clarified to me what discontentment looks like and I’d like to maybe turn over those rocks a bit and just so we understand what the opposite looks like, and that word was entitlement. Speak a little bit more on entitlement. 

How do we detect entitlement in our life? Yeah. It’s believing that we have the right to something or some situation, maybe even someone that maybe we don’t. And I think it does come down to our perceived rights or our due. And I think it’s much more subtle than that in a lot of situations today, especially with social media and perceived rights. 

I mean, it used to be in advertising and things that were pretty obvious, right? You’d see a picture of a beautiful gal or a guy or whatever, obviously living life. And so, the message was, you’re entitled to the same thing, but I think it’s much more subtle today. You see pictures of your friends or others and maybe not even friends, but someone you’re following and it looks like everything is together and all of this. 

And pretty soon you’re feeling entitled to have what they have or perceived to have, even though most of it’s not real. And so, I think that brings a very real sense of entitlement and maybe not even in those words, but of desires that just lead to potential discontentment if we’re not careful. I don’t know if that makes sense, but feel free to jump in and hone that. 

Yeah, it sure does. I’ll just add my voice behind exactly what you said there, Tom. I think it is really subversive to the human spirit. It doesn’t necessarily come in guns blazing, but it starts as a seed, and then something waters that seed, and then that grows roots, and it doesn’t take terribly long for that weed to really choke out a worldview that incorporates God and his goodness, as we’ve just been discussing. That’s what I’ve noticed. I think for myself at times when I can identify myself as being discontented, there were times where I became tunnel visioned. And I simply shrunk my view of the world to this is Isaac’s world and if I want it, that’s a good enough reason to have it. 

And I believe that we can become pretty myopically focused on certain things, but really this, I believe, is pervasive. I think it’s affecting our contentment in our marriages. It’s affecting our contentment as single. It’s affecting our contentment in our churches, in our communities of faith or just in our communities. 

And so, I think the list goes on and on. In what ways are the times that we live more uniquely in this forever battle against discontentment? Yeah, I think we live in such a fast-paced time where everything is available at our fingertips. I say everything, meaning information, pictures, perceived realities, all of those things are just hitting us. Where in the past, people were living more in their own communities, in their own families, in their own environments, and a little bit more isolated from all that was happening everywhere.  

Obviously, there were forms of media coming in, and were there, but it’s just so pervasive today that at almost every age you’re bombarded with these messages and these perceptions that make it worse today. 

And it’s just so hard to stay grounded and not to be influenced by everything we’re seeing and hearing that in many ways is designed to bring discontent because they want you to do something else or to spend more time or, on and on. So, yeah, it’s like we’re overstimulated to be to discontent, right? 

Right. There’s so much information flying at us nonstop that we don’t even have time to even think and consider if these things are worth feeling this way about or not. Right? Yeah. Maybe if we would just have time for even just reflection, that might be a good way to go about curing some of that discontent in my own life. 

So, Isaac, I’d like to ask you, I’m going to push a little bit on this entitlement term. First off, let me confess, I have come to see entitlement in my life, and it’s insidious. An example, my wife or my children might make my lunch a couple days in a row, and at first, oh, well that’s nice, thank you, hey, oh, that’s really great. And then if they stop off doing it after about eight days, I’m wondering why, you know, exactly what first was a gift, and I recognized it as a gift, just so quickly becomes entitlement, right? It’s insidious. But there is this notion, I think, where we say we don’t deserve things. 

And somehow the way to contentment is through abasing yourself to the point where you realize you don’t deserve anything. And I want to push on that a little bit. Is that really the answer here, Isaac? Do you follow my question? I think I do, and you can certainly steer me back on course if I get off, but I think we’re sold so many things. 

And again, it’s such a speed that we can’t even begin to consider what is an actual need. What is actually good for me as a whole person, I might feel entitled to things that are very much not for my good, things that would actually destroy my life if I had them. I love then to think about the way God has dealt with me. He has what’s best for me in mind. 

And sometimes that does look very different from what I want, but he knows exactly what it is that’s going to be completing me, that’s going to be filling me to the full and to overflowing beyond my imagination. I might get on Instagram and see all of these lavish lives being lived around me and think, wow, one day I’ll get that or maybe God would bless me that way. Oh, actually, God’s probably blessing me by not giving me that. That entitlement is simply poison to me. We’re being told that we need an awful lot of things that look good. And we can feel like I deserve these things, or I need these things to live, but they would actually be really harmful to us. 

And as I’ve had this conversation here, I’m coming more and more to the opinion that contentment is beautiful. Contentment in itself is satisfying. And so, these exercises are not so much as to make a person be able to do without, but to bring a person to understand what matters. Amen. And I think that cages contentment in a completely different and important light. 

Absolutely. Well said. Some people might be listening to this and thinking, I wish I knew God that way, that I could be content with just Him. I don’t think I do know Him that way. I’m not so sure that He’s actually given me the best life. Maybe I’ve had abuses or some really deep scarring, and how could a loving God do that to me? 

I think that’s an important point to raise, Isaac. Yeah, I do too. And I love the invitation that Jesus extends in Matthew 11, where he invites all to come unto me. Are you weary and heavy laden? And I will give you rest and obviously coming unto me is the key aspect there. Jesus in that invitation. If I were to speak to this issue myself, I’m of the persuasion that God doesn’t mind when we’re disappointed with him in the sense that he can handle that. I think the key then is that we recognize that he’s not letting us go because we found disappointment in him, but that we can actually still embrace God in the midst of being disappointed with him and he will then embrace us. Maybe that’s the encouragement in this place of disappointment, when we can go to him, even despite feelings of unmet expectation, or he didn’t show up in the way that we expected him to, that he’s not done with us yet. He’s not done with us yet.  

Isaac and Tom, thanks for this conversation. I want your comment on just one classic Scripture that we all know by heart that I think does speak to this and sums it up beautifully. And that is the 23rd Psalm, verse 1, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. It’s arguably the most beautiful phrase in the English language, actually. And it says so much. So, your closing comments on that verse.  

Beautiful. That’s a wonderful verse to reflect in closing. He is the good shepherd, and he speaks and we hear his voice and the peace that comes when we have him as our shepherd, we have no need of anything else. 

I’ve heard that verse translated. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack no good thing. It encourages me to stay close to the shepherd, because as the psalm continues, he’s going to be leading me into good places. Places that I very much need in my life. Isaac and Tom, thanks. To our listeners, we trust this conversation will be a blessing to you as you reflect on your own growth process as God continues to teach you as he does all of us in this life of contentment. 

May the Lord bless you.