Find the source.

It’s a good practice in most area of life. If you have water in your basement, don’t just clean up the water. Find the source of where it’s coming in. If you have ants in your kitchen, don’t just spray the ants. Find the source of where they’re gaining access. If you have a pain in your body, don’t just take Advil. Find the source to make sure nothing deeper is going on.

See the problem, then find the source.

So it is spiritually. We see a behavior manifest itself, and we should be quick to focus on the mess it creates. But we shouldn’t stop there – we should find the source. And when we follow the trail of that physical behavior, we will always end up back at the heart. There, in our hearts, we will likely find some misshapen belief about God that is working itself out in various ways. We treat those manifestations, but we ask the Holy Spirit to do surgery on our hearts.

Let’s apply that philosophy to an overall issue that most of us deal with – that of discontentment in life. Let’s say that you look around your life, and you find yourself constantly thirsting and striving for more. You are living with a sense of entitlement, borne by your discontent, and you are entertaining the fantasies of the ever elusive “else:”

• You want, and you deserve something else in your marriage.
• You want, and you deserve, something else in terms of your income.
• You want, and you deserve, something else in terms of your living situation.
• You want, and you deserve, something else in terms of your personal importance.

In pretty much every area of your life, you are dissatisfied with the current situation. And while there is nothing wrong in and of itself in advancing your career, in these particular situations it’s an unhealthy preoccupation with that advancement. Your desire has morphed into something selfishly sinful and idolatrously entitled.

This discontentment is the symptom; but what is the source? If you and I are living in this way, there is something malfunctioning in our hearts. Our beliefs have been corrupted, and this kind of life is the evidence. Once we’re at the heart level, then, our question shifts. If we want to live a life of contentment, then that life should be fueled by what we believe to be true about God. So what must we believe to be true about God if we are to live contentedly? At least three things:

You must believe that God is in control. Did you come to this marriage, this home, this job, this life by accident? If you did, then by all means, seek something other and else. If it all happened by accident, then you should get all you can while you can. But if there is actually some kind of intentionality behind this, if God is truly in control, then there must be reason and meaning behind where you find yourself in life right now. If God is in control, then, you can pursue and pray toward a sense of contentment where you are. But that’s not the only thing you have to believe. You not only have to believe that God is in control…

You must believe God is loving. Most of us at one point or another have had a boss that loved the little bit of power and control that he or she has over us. Because they loved it, they abused it. They used that power not to lift others up and serve them, but instead to beat them down. If you only believe God is in control but are not convinced He loves you, it means that you should do everything in your power to escape from under His thumb if that were possible, because you know that He will abuse the power He has over you for His own enjoyment. But if you do actually believe God is both all powerful and that He actually does love you, then you are free to be content in the situation you find yourself in. Though it might be difficult, you can choose to believe God has placed you there intentionally, and though you can’t for the life of you see how, you know that ultimately this too is for your good. Which leads us to the third thing you must believe about God to lived contentedly…

You must believe God is generous. Now this is where it gets even more difficult, because the root of many of our choices is actually a failure to believe in the generosity of God. Think back with me to the very beginning of time, when everything was good and right in the garden. The first man and the first woman were there, and all was well. And God was incredibly generous with them – He not only provided what they needed; He went above and beyond that. He gave them every single tree in the garden of Eden to eat from. Every single tree – save one. And that’s where the serpent entered into the story.

The question he asked the woman in Genesis 3 went like this – “Did God really say you can’t eat from any tree in the garden?” And yet, there is a subtle but unmistakable charge at the heart of this question, and it’s a charge against the generosity of God. The charge is this: “God is holding back on you.” He’s not giving all you could have. He’s withholding what you are entitled to.”

When we continue to look to something other than what God has generously provided for us, whether in marriage, work, relationships, or anywhere else, we are believing the same lie. We are buying into the falsehood that God is not in fact generous, that He is withholding that from us which would truly satisfy us and make us happy.

Contentment is a demonstration of our faith in a powerful, loving, and generous God. When we are content, we demonstrate that we believe God has intentionally placed us where we are, out of His love, and He was good and generous in doing so. But how do we know that’s true? How can we believe it? Especially when we look around us, at the devastation, disease, and destruction in our lives and the world today which seem to tell us over and over again that God is anything but in control? Anything but loving? Anything but generous?

The pull is strong. The temptation is mighty. And in the end, to truly believe these things about God and to therefore live in the middle of what God has provided for us, we must look to the cross because that’s ultimately where we see the power, the love, and the generosity of God.

We see His power and control – “Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely.Whenyou make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished” (Isaiah 53:10). Ultimately, it was the plan of God for Jesus to go to the cross. Though the situation might have seemed to those in the middle of it to be spinning out of control, God was not once taken aback in surprise, but instead was accomplishing His own purposes even at the hands of sinful men.

We see His love – “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be thepropitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). The very definition of love is displayed at the cross, that Jesus willingly gave up His very life for us.

And we see His generosity – “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare His own Son but offered Him up for us all; how will He not also with Him grant us everything?” (Romans 8:31-32). God gave us all when He gave us Christ. He has held nothing back from us.

Look to the cross, and let this display of God’s control, power, and generosity fuel your contentment today.