I like being happy.
This may seem like an obvious statement, but I’m convinced its not. Some people prefer misery. Whether they like the attention that comes with pity or they just find it easier to point out what they dislike, they choose, through their own volition, to dwell in the smut of life rather than flourishing in the richness of possibility. They choose to be discontent.
It really is easy to point out the things that we are missing. It’s easy to recognize what others have that we haven’t or to announce how life has cheated us out of what we believe we deserve. Sometimes, searching for the goodness that life offers is quite a chore. We look at our lives, and if we’re like most people on this Earth, it hasn’t exactly turned out the way we planned. It may be that our job’s not good enough, our spouse’s not good enough, or we don’t have either of the above. If its not one of those things, than for each of us there’s something that we wish were different, something that we wish made a little more sense or offered a little more respite.
But life rarely does turn out as we planned. Most of the time, if we’re honest, it turns out better. I’m convinced that God wants to pour down His blessings on His children and that most of the time when life’s hard, its the result of our own actions. But even when this is not the case, even when there are inexplicable mysteries of pain and suffering, we can still choose to be content. Because contentment is not dependent on what we have or what we are missing. Contentedness is dependent on trusting the One who has it all and in recognizing all the blessings that He’s given us despite what we deserve.