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Welcome to the Thankful Homemaker podcast, a podcast to be an encouragement
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and blessing to each other in the role God has called us to as women.
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I'm so thankful you've stopped by, so grab yourself a coffee or tea and sit
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with me a bit as we talk about how God's Word impacts every area of our lives as Christian women.
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Hello, friend. I'm Marci Farrell from Thankful Homemaker, and I'm so glad to be with you today.
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We're going to spend a little time in Philippians chapter 4 talking about contentment.
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This is something I've written about before here on the blog,
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and it's certainly something the Lord continues to work on in my own heart,
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because it can be so easy to think that we would be more content
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if something in our circumstances would just change, or maybe if someone in our life would change.
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But Paul reminds us that contentment is something he learned,
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and he learned it through the circumstances the Lord brought into his life.
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So today, I want us to look at what Paul teaches us in Philippians chapter 4,
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verses 11 through 13 and think about what it looks like for us to learn to be
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content in Christ right where the Lord has us. So let's start with verse 11, where Paul writes,
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Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
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I love that Paul tells us in Philippians 4 that he had learned to be content.
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Did you catch those words? I have learned.
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This wasn't just something Paul knew to be true. The Lord had taught him contentment
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through the circumstances he brought into his life.
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And I think that's encouraging for us because contentment doesn't come naturally
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to us either. I stated it in a blog post years back, just there's not five steps
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to becoming more content, right?
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We learn it as we walk with the Lord and we trust Him and what He gives us and
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also in what He chooses to withhold.
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I see this in my own heart so often. It doesn't always take some big circumstance
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to bring out discontentment in me.
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Sometimes it's just a day that isn't going the way I planned or something I
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was hoping would work out differently or even another person not
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doing what
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I thought. they should do.
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It doesn't take long for me to see how easily I can tie my contentment to having
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things go the way I want them to.
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We think we would be more content if we had maybe more money or better health
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or more time or fewer responsibilities or if someone in our life would just
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do something differently. There always seems to be something we think needs
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to change before we can be content.
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And many times we deal with discontentment because of unmet expectations.
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We have an idea in our minds of how we think things should be.
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And when they don't turn out that way, we can find ourselves complaining or
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frustrated with what the Lord has given us.
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Listen, I know all the right verses about contentment, and I still find myself
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grumbling when things don't go the way that I hoped.
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I'm still learning to trust the Lord and what he gives me. And then in verse 12, Paul says.
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I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.
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In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and
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hunger, abundance, and need.
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So Paul knew what it was to have plenty, and he knew what it was to be in need.
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Yet whether he had plenty or whether he was in need, you know what? Christ never changed.
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The next verse is also one we know too well. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
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We hear this verse quoted in all sorts of ways. But in the context here,
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Paul is talking about being content in whatever circumstances the Lord had placed him in.
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We can live independent of our circumstances when we are living dependent on
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Christ. Let me say that again.
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It's a good quote from this one I may have to pull. We can live independent
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of our circumstances when we are living dependent on Christ.
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So Paul wasn't saying that he had learned to be self-sufficient or that he could
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just grit his teeth and make it through whatever came his way.
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His sufficiency was in Christ. Christ was the one who gave Paul the strength
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to be content in plenty and in need.
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Okay, I need this reminder, and I'm thinking some of you probably do too,
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because for me, I can so easily find myself just wishing something were different.
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And again, being content, it doesn't mean that we pretend things aren't hard.
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There are hard things, right?
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Paul certainly knew what it was to suffer and to be in need.
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And it doesn't mean, again, it's wrong to ask the Lord to change our circumstances.
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I talked about that a little bit in the previous episode on James a couple weeks ago.
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We can bring those desires before the Lord and ask Him to change our circumstances
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while still trusting that He knows what's best for us because He does.
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And I think our unmet expectations can reveal so much about our hearts.
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Basically, we're saying, can I say, am I willing to trust the Lord if He doesn't
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answer the way I hoped He would?
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Romans 8.28 has been such a comfort to me over the years because the Lord is
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working in every circumstance of our lives, all of them, right?
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He's working all things for our good and his glory to those of us in Christ,
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even the ones we would never choose.
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And verse 29 continues there, it reminds us that one of his purposes is to conform
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us to the image of his son.
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I need to remember that he uses even the things that I would never choose to
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do his work in me and make me more like Christ because he knows what he needs
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to do to do that and accomplish that.
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I see this with my expectations of other people too.
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I can easily think that if this person just would respond differently or not
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do those things, then I wouldn't be frustrated.
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But now my contentment, it becomes dependent on another person behaving the way I think they should.
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We can put expectations on our husband, our children, our friends,
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things that they were never meant to carry, looking to them for something that
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can only be found in Christ.
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Hebrews 13.5 tells us to be content with what you have, and then gives us the reason.
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For he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
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What a comfort that is to remember that we have him always. As a believer,
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he's holding us fast. He will never leave us or forsake us.
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So maybe it would be helpful to ask ourselves where discontentment has been showing up in our lives.
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You know, what maybe have we been complaining about or what do we think needs
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to change before we can be content?
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What? Are we holding tightly to an expectation of how we think something should
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go? Or is my contentment, is it dependent on someone else changing?
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These are questions I need to ask myself. And when the Lord shows us those places,
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we can bring them before Him.
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We can confess our grumbling and our discontentment, and we can thank Him for
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all the many ways He has already cared for us and ask Him to help us trust His
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good providence in our lives.
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And just like the Apostle Paul, we are all still learning to be content in whatever
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circumstances the Lord gives us, right?
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And I'm so grateful that our good God, He patiently teaches us as we walk with
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Him and continues to remind us that Jesus is enough for whatever He calls us to.
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So whatever our needs today, I pray that we trust fully in the sufficiency of Christ.
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There is where we will find contentment for our souls. And if you want to read
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a little more on this, I'll link an older post I have on learning contentment in the show notes.
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This is also something I spend more time in in Chapter 8 of my book,
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Homemaking Matters, where I talk about finding peace over perfection and some
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of the expectations that we can place on ourselves or our homes or the people around us.
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I'll leave all that information about the book in the show notes,
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too. So I'm so thankful for you being here with me today. I'm always grateful
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for time that we get to spend together in CusWord.
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And my friend, we know always that Jesus truly is enough.
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I'm so grateful for you. And I do pray you have a very blessed week, my dear friend.