We must be in the will of God to be content. When you believe you are exactly where God wants you to be, you wouldn’t be happy if you were anywhere else in the whole wide world. When we have no complaint with His workings in our lives, we are held together inside. In fact the dictionary defines contentment as “to hold in, contain together.” What’s going on inside you? Are you holding together or are you falling apart?

To be content, we must be in the Word of God and refuse to listen to Satan’s dark and sinister suggestions. Satan wants to confuse us as to the matter of contentment. The Word of God will help us to think straight. The Scriptures may remind us “...a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). Paul was happy enough with what he had, and didn’t desire one thing more or less to feel complete. We must decide to be more concerned with the concerns of God than with our own.

Paul was determined to look on the bright side and set himself to think of others worse off than himself. Paul knew how to be full or empty, rich or poor, rejected or accepted, loved or hated, followed or opposed, beaten or bathed and bandaged, stoned or worshiped, clothed or stripped naked, safe or in peril, tired or well rested. He was even, believe it or not, content to be either dead or alive! He was willing for all or nothing as long as God was there and God was using him. Paul, full of the Spirit, gave God full permission to use him to His glory, and with that he was content whatever the repercussions.

Contentment is finding the strength we need to accelerate the progress of the gospel. Paul says “in every circumstance,” literally “everywhere and in all things” he is free and sufficient in Christ to care about other people’s eternal well-being before his own physical and emotional needs.

A missionary in Equador wrote about the fabulous flowers that grew in abundance around their missionary buildings. She said there was even an orchid growing in a garbage pile. F.B. Meyer said, “We can do a lot to elaborate the faculty of contentment; the seed of it is in our hearts by the grace of God, but the flower and fruit demand our constant heed.” That’s a tall order when we are in a prison of our own making or a victim of other people’s sin; but then Paul reminds us that “We can do everything through Him who gives us life,” like grow flowers of contentment even in a garbage pile!