I suppose we all had things our mothers said that infuriated us at the time but in later years, we heard ourselves saying them to our own children 😊. Included in my list are these 2 – “Cleanliness is next to godliness” – (Go wash your hands again!)” and “Contentment with godliness is great gain” – (usually because I thought I needed a new dress).  While both these statements are undeniably true, time has relegated the first to childhood training and amplified the second so that it has become fundamental to my understanding of what it means to age wisely and well, especially once I realized that this was not merely mother-wisdom, but the wisdom of God.

Of course, there is such a thing as ‘holy discontent’, the fiery vision that is birthed in us by the Holy Spirit when we see people the way God sees them, forcing us to cry out like Paul: “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” I like what Reinhard Bonnke used to say when criticized for his passion in preaching: “When I see how Satan torments people, I cannot purr like a kitten, but I want to roar like a lion!” THAT is holy discontent indeed, and we should never rest until the good news has gone into every corner of the world!

But when it comes to the way we live every day, our total satisfaction with the Lord Jesus as our reason for living should free us from the ‘agreeable bondages’ offered us all day, every day, in a world given over to the relentless advertising of things that have no eternal value whatsoever. From the way we look in the mirror, to the way we feed our bodies, it seems there is always someone hoping to make money out of our discontent. I think one of the first things we noticed when arriving to live in America, was the vehicles parked on driveways because of too much ‘stuff’ in the garages 😊.

It seems to me that the closer time takes me to the mansion Jesus has prepared for us, the less cluttered I want to be by the things and thoughts of this old world. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a death wish or even some vague premonition of imminent departure, but flying free of things that don’t really matter seems to me something to get excited about! I must admit that despite my grounding in the Word and my love of the things of the Spirit, I have too often obeyed the siren call of earthly things.

And so, I’m back where I started, still hearing my mother’s words which happen to come from 1 Timothey 6:8: ‘…true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it.  So, if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content!

Blessings and love!

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