Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose life bridged the 18th and 19th centuries, enumerated “nine requisites for contented living.”
1. “health enough to make work a pleasure;
2. wealth enough to support your needs;
3. strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them;
4. grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them;
5. patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished;
6. charity enough to see some good in your neighbor;
7. love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others;
8. faith enough to make real the things of God; and
9. hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.”
I wonder in this season of Thanksgiving what your list of requisites for contented living might include?
Are you content? If not, why not?
It is hard to imagine that person could feel genuine gratitude or offer genuine thanks if they were not first, at the very least, content.
But as the Apostle Paul notes, there is a secret to being content. There is a secret to living with a heart filled with gratitude and lips filled with thanksgiving no matter the circumstances of life. People of faith in Jesus Christ know that secret but unlike other secrets, this one is meant to be shared.
In Philippians 4:12-13 Paul discloses, “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, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
That’s the secret of a contented life. The secret of gratitude and thanksgiving is that it’s not all about us, it’s all about Jesus. He is the One whose presence strengthens us. He is the One whose sacrifice saves us. He is the One whose life enlivens us. He is the One whose resources sustain us. He is the One whose fellowship means we are never alone, no matter the circumstances.
Using Goethe’s list as a guide, see how the person of Jesus, being present with you and for you, satisfies all the requisites of a contented life?
1. health enough to make work a pleasure;
2. wealth enough to support your needs;
3. strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them;
4. grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them;
5. patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished;
6. charity enough to see some good in your neighbor;
7. love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others;
8. faith enough to make real the things of God; and
9. hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
No secret anymore. Contentedness is found in a life that is lived in and for Jesus Christ. And that is a life of thanksgiving worth living.