Is Contentment the Absence of Unmet God-Honoring Desires?

Contentment Is Not the Absence of God-Honoring Desires

Yeah, I was thinking of like, you know, the people who are missionaries over in China and they go and, you know, they don't see anyone come to Christ for years and years and years. Like, what is the answer there?

Is it just to say, well, hey, I got to stop desiring that people in China be saved and come to Christ, I guess, if I want to honor God. Tim, here's today's question.

A lot of people who are, you know, unwillingly single or they're functionally, like if a woman is barren and she wants to have children and she's unable to have children, you know, a lot of people with these major life kind of situations where they have a good desire, a good God honoring desire that God is for whatever reason in his providence currently withholding, they basically conclude that they are struggling with contentment simply by virtue of the fact that they have this strong unmet desire that God is not granting.

Them.

And so, you know, for them, like this, the presence of this desire is like, you know, it's like a slave master's whip on their back, so to speak. And they're essentially, they're concluding that like the way to be sanctified is to somehow divest themselves of this desire.

So, you know, for the person who's unwillingly single, what they try to do is they try to get to some point where they stop desiring to be married. And the problem is that because they're fighting against God's like fundamental primary, you know, purpose for the human race, that the human race would, you know, couple up essentially.

It's not good for man to be alone, but God will provide a helper, you know, fit for, you know, Adam in particular and for the human race in general. What happens is that they're unsuccessful in getting rid of this desire.

And so, you know, that's true of like being unwillingly single. That's true of, you know, barrenness in general. The Bible says that the barren womb is never satisfied. And so they think to themselves like, I have this desire, it's unmet.

It must be that God doesn't want me to have this because it's painful to kind of have this unmet desire that I can't seem to get rid of. And it must be like irrefutable proof that I'm somehow not content because I'm unsuccessful in getting rid of this desire.

But then, you know, as you think about, you know, the way the Bible actually works, there's plenty of situations in the Bible where God will withhold a good desire from an individual, you know, in some cases, like a desire that they have to deal with, like throughout the entirety of their life in general.

And he wants them to have that good desire, and he doesn't want them to surrender that good desire. And so, you know, as you think about what contentment actually is, you know, Paul says in whatever he's learned that in whatever state he's in to be content, but just because you're content in the state, just because you've accepted that whatever God's providence for you is at the moment is good, that doesn't mean that God wants you to surrender all these good God-honoring desires.

And in fact, I mean, you know, often it's very important for you to maintain these God-honoring desires, even in the absence of their, you know, immediate fulfillment. So you know, the short answer is no, like contentment is not the absence of these, you know, God-honoring desires that you're holding on to that are unmet in that way.

False Religions and the Desire to Want Nothing

You know, when you were describing this idea of like trying to get rid yourself of various desires that you have, you know, like just stopping desiring it altogether, it made me think a lot about, you know, I think there's a lot of that kind of idea in more Eastern type religions, right?

And where you try and, you know, true happiness is found in not desiring anything, right? And I think, you know, I could be wrong on this, but that feels like borderline Gnostic a little bit too.

Yeah.

Well, a lot of false religions essentially have that kind of, you know, framework. So like basically, you know, like there is a variety of Eastern religions where that is a typical framework and there is a Gnostic kind of like a despising of the body, right?

Despising of the material where you're learning to, you know, get rid yourself of, you know, all desire and, you know, the same thing is true, I think in general of just Stoicism in general. So a Stoic kind of outlook, like meaning like, you know, the Stoic kind of outlook is to say that, hey, like you need to master your emotions and have no emotions and, you know, learn to want nothing essentially.

But yes, I mean, I think that this is a common like theme that's present in a wide variety of situations in that way.

But then, you know, that in and of itself makes me very hesitant to, you know, look at that as like a legitimate answer to the question, you know, what does contentment look like? Just the fact that so many religions seem to incorporate that kind of idea as a sort of foundational aspect of how you reach enlightenment or, you know, salvation or whatever it is, that in and of itself is enough to give me pause and say, hang on, like maybe we don't have, you know, if that's our understanding of contentment, you know, maybe we don't have it right because this looks a lot like all of those false, you know, false religions.

I don't think that's necessarily like a perfect test in and of itself, but then I think that is one of those things that we should look at and say, hang on, maybe I'm, you know, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way because this really does look like a bunch of other false religions.

Good Desires That Should Be Held Onto, Not Killed

Yes, sure. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of, you know, different examples in the Bible of individuals that would establish this principle that, you know, I think it is very counterintuitive in certain ways and it's very counter to like a lot of other different religions, like as we're talking about.

And so, like, you know, when you think about it, like to a person who's like unwillingly single or to a person who's like barren, for instance, or, you know, like let's say you have like a guy who desires to be a pastor and God hasn't opened up a pastor job for him or something along those lines, or, you know, maybe you have a desire to be a missionary,.

You may be.

So there's a lot of these things that are like good desires. And you know, I know that we could think of like counterexamples to these things as well. But then like meaning like, you know, if you desire your child, like if you have an unsaved child, for instance, and you desire your child to be saved, like that's a good example to the opposite that would show people like that, hey, we actually do have a category for holding on to like a good desire, not just surrendering that good desire.

So I don't know many people who would like if they have an unsaved child, who would think that they would honor the Lord just to stop desiring them to be saved. Do you get what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I was I was thinking of like, you know, the people who are missionaries over in China and they go and, you know, they they don't see anyone come to Christ for years and years and years. Like, what what is the answer there?

Is it just to say, well, hey, I got to stop desiring that people in China be saved and come to Christ, I guess if I want to honor God, I want to honor God and, you know, basically.

Just, you know, no longer want anyone to be saved because currently they're not right. So that must be irrefutable proof that it's God's will that they never will be. And so but then people do that with, you know, the idea of singleness.

They do that with the idea of like wanting children, not being able to have children in particular. And they they do that in other areas. And I think they do that. They're tempted to do that in the areas that are currently under attack by the culture.

So like you're like if you're living in a culture, you're living in a culture and society right now that despises the idea of marriage and thinks that like the idea of being married is like this, this, you know, this choice, like an individual choice that some Christians might make if they want to.

And they also view children in that way. That's just like a completely arbitrary choice that you can make if you want to, if it's going to make you happy. And if you don't, you don't have to make it if it if if you don't think it'll make you.

Happy.

But then, you know, as you read through the Bible, you realize that the Bible doesn't speak about these things like that. Like the Bible says, the barren womb is never satisfied because like, you know, that God's designed your body in order to have children.

And there's so many like daily reminders of that in a wide variety of ways in the same way that God's put it within you, like this deep, like most people, like this very deep desire to be coupled with another person, like in that they're going to be reminded of that in a wide variety of ways.

And like to the people who don't want to be married, like most of the time, they still want to date. They still want to get all the benefits of marriage without any of the commitment of it, because there's these deep kind of desires.

And if you're a person who comes along, you say, hey, you know, I actually want married marriage. Unlike this, you know, pagan society, I live in actually want children, unlike the pagan society I live in.

But I can't seem to find the ability or, you know, an option to get married, to have children. And then they just look at themselves and they say, hey, well, it's painful, right? It's painful to be in this situation where I have this strong, unmet desire that God is like, for whatever reason, seem fit to withhold.

And so like in some sort of self-preservation kind of way, they conclude, well, it must be that the desire is wrong. It must be I need to get rid of this desire. Like, that's what they conclude. Like, it must be that this desire is bad, because like this good desire is only, you know, bringing me pain.

But then like what they need to realize is that, and this is something that, you know, most people probably haven't thought about, is that God like actually wants you to hold on to that desire. He doesn't want you to let it go.

And he wants you to be strengthened by that. So, I mean, you could read through the, you know, Hebrews 11, and there's a variety of examples of this very thing that are present within Hebrews 11 that are making this exact point.

So Hebrews 11, 8 says, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. So Abraham was given a land that was going to be his inheritance.

So by faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise, for he was looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

So like he went out, but he never fully received the promised land in his life.

Right?

But he went to live in there, you know, as like living in a foreign land. By faith, Abraham, or by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age. So it was years and years and years of God telling Abraham and Sarah, they're going to have a child.

And it was years and years, like, you know, most people don't recognize how long it was before he actually fulfilled that promise. And there was times I'm sure that they were tempted in the middle of that just to say, well, it's not going to happen.

You know, and that was obvious because Sarah encourages Abraham to go into Hagar or whatever to go ahead and get this out of the way. Because she concluded, like they both kind of thought, well, maybe it isn't going to happen.

But, you know, at certain points, but Hebrews 11 says, by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead, both were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven, as many as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.

So notice, like, they died before they had that many offspring, that many descendants,.

Right?

Right.

They died before that. But like verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had an opportunity to learn. But if they've been thinking, but as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly.

One.

Therefore, God's not ashamed to be called their God for he's prepared for them a city. So basically, I mean, you have an example of individuals who are given certain promises even, and they refuse to let go of those.

They held on to those, even though they died in faith, not receiving those. And I think like the same thing is true of individuals who are struggling with good things. Like you never want to mortify a good desire.

The Bible says you put to death evil desires. Like you don't want to mortify a good desire. You want to hold onto these good desires. You want to say, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm single. I want to be married.

God hasn't given me a spouse. What you need to be saying is like, marriage is good.

Right?

I live in a culture. I live in a society that despises marriage. I'm not going to despise marriage.

Okay. Yeah.

Like the answer is not to say, okay, I don't want this anymore because that would make me just like all the people that I'm surrounded by.

Right.

Like, no, I'm going to keep on wanting the good, just like God commands me to want it. And I want to want it for the right reason.

Right.

James says you do not have, because you do not ask and you ask and you don't receive because you asked to spend it, miss on your passions. So what you want to do is you want to hold onto that good desire and you want to refine.

It.

You want to say, God, give me this for the right reason for your glory. I want to be married. Give me a spouse so that I can honor you with that. You want to be like Hannah, who is praying for that child and then, you know, praying for it for right reasons, like saying, Lord, if you give me this child, I'll give this child to you.

Right.

And then when she got that child, she gave it to him. And so in the same way, like you want, like you have you, you're a bear and you want a.

Child.

You need to be praying for that child so that you can give that child functionally to the.

Lord. Right.

You praying, give me that spouse.

Why?

Not just for me so that I'll feel better and I'll feel OK and I won't feel weird.

Right.

Give me a spouse because I want to honor you as a godly wife. I want to honor you as a godly husband. So that's. And then what you need to be doing is growing strong in faith, not surrendering these good desires.

Closing Counsel and Podcast Sign-Off

OK, fair enough. Personally, then please know that we also offer free biblical counseling, which you can take advantage of by emailing us. Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.