tell my friends that the point of being saved is to get to heaven and say to yourself, ‘Ooh, I’m glad I’m dead!’ The transforming thing about the Good News is that, no matter what your circumstances are – in your finances, relationships, achievements – Jesus can bring you to a point at which you say, ‘Goodness, I’m glad to be alive!’ As St Paul put it twenty centuries ago, ‘As long as we have food and clothing, we can be content with that.’
Victorian preachers insisted that the secret of content was to accept the place that God had put you in the pecking order of society, and not fight against it. If you were poor, the best response was to get on with being poor without grumbling, and be as happy as you could. One of their favourite hymns included the words: ‘The rich man in his castle, the poor man at the gate, God made them high and lowly, and ordered their estate.’ Although children still sing ‘All things bright and beautiful’, no one sings that verse any more.
And of course, we don’t think like that about God any more. We have learnt a lot about God during the last 200 years. One of the things we have learnt is that God doesn’t want us to be content to leave some people in poverty while others get rich. The very opposite in fact! We should absolutely not be content to live in a comfortable country if that has come about at the cost of others being trapped in poverty. And surely God does not intend us to be apathetic, or content to let life drift by without attempting to improve ourselves.
So how do we know when to be content and when to agitate for something better?
| True contentment is a real, active virtue. It is the power of getting out of any situation all there is in it. G. K. Chesterton, novelist, 1874–1936 |
Well … my friend Gary came round for coffee and we were talking about my plumbing. Over Christmas my kitchen sink had been draining unbearably slowly. I told Gary that I would probably put up with it for a week, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer I would pay for a plumber because I’m hopeless at DIY. Gary was adamant. ‘Don’t you dare! I’ll stand over you and make you sort it out yourself.’
And I did. Unscrewed all the wet, murky stuff! Cleared it! Saved a fortune! Felt triumphant!
It has really inspired me not to be content with my incompetence. Since then I’ve done a heap of work to improve my new flat – you should see the bathroom! So Gary and I have been discussing when it is right to be content, and when discontent should spur us on to make the world better. And it occurred to us that St Paul has already given us the answer. He wrote: ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain.’ That’s how you know! Does the content you are hankering after in life come alongside godliness?
| The world is not enough. The family motto of Ian Fleming’s hero James Bond, translated from the Latin ‘Orbis non sufficit’, which was the motto of the real life eighteenth-century financier Sir Thomas Bond |
You can practise that! Practise being content with a godly approach to life. Practise lying in bed at the end of the day reflecting on any good things that have happened, and register that they are part of the world that God has spread out before us. Practise looking at your lunch before you eat it, with all its colours and smells and tastes, and thank God that he conceived such a sensual world for us. Practise focusing on what you enjoy about people, thanking God that friendship and pleasure are possible in his good world. If you do that, God will make you a happier person.
| Lord God, I have been so eager to do well. But now turn me into someone who is eager to do good. Amen. |
If you don’t find content in godliness, there are plenty of people who will try to sell content to you. Many will persuasively tell you that you can find content in shiny, bleeping things. It starts with very young children who are offered content in hand-held, computerized, shiny, bleeping things. It escalates when adults are lured towards four-seater, shiny, bleeping things. Or four-ring-hob, shiny, bleeping things. But now as then, godliness with contentment is great gain.
I’m writing to persuade myself as much as anyone else. Last week I got new curtains in the living room. (I was given some money to write this book!) And those curtains are making me unbelievably happy. But do you know what the source of that happiness is? It’s not because they are new and shiny. It’s because I put that curtain pole up myself. Drilled it, screwed it … and it’s still up there! I keep going into the room to look at it and thank God. I am so content!
That’s what this book is going to be about for the next forty days. About me, my home, my friends, and our hope that living our lives in the company of the risen Jesus will give us authentic happiness.
I must confess that I have been asking myself, ‘Are people really going to be interested in my plumbing and my curtains?’ But actually, those are the realities of life to which Jesus can genuinely make a difference. Don’t be content just to let him change the way you pray on Sunday; expect him to change the way you live from Monday to Saturday. If you are going to turn the Ark Royal round, then the curtains and the plumbing will be turning round with the rest of the ship.
Shiny, bleeping things – or godliness with contentment. Your choice!
| Be happy! Next time you have food in front of you, make a point of not saying grace – not in words anyway! Instead, look at what you are about to eat and drink, with its contrasting colours and textures, and anticipate the tastes that are on their way. Think about whether you are grateful for this. If you are, who are you grateful to? |
Be Happy! Day 2
Let go of grievances
| [ Jesus said,] ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ Matthew 5.9 |
When I got my first job as a teacher in a primary school, I moved out of my parents’ home and bought a flat in South London. I chose one on a council estate where the children I was teaching lived, because I thought that had more integrity. To those who came and visited me there, thank you for the happy memories – and I’m sorry about your wing mirrors!
It had stretched me as far as I could to buy the place, so I thought I was quite poor. But I was naive, and I got a shock when I found myself living among people who really were poor. I got on very well with Suzanne, whose front door was opposite mine. I admired her terrifically because she was putting grim family circumstances behind her and bringing up her little boy Joel to rise above them. It was the first time it had occurred to me that some people live in a house with no carpet, so I was learning a great deal in a short time.
One of Suzanne’s relatives died in Leeds, and she got the chance to go and take any furniture she wanted. For her, it was like stumbling on hidden treasure, and she asked if I could help. I hired a lorry, put the couple of hundred pounds it cost on my credit card, and we drove up there. We loaded the furniture, brought it home, and it transformed the flat. Fantastic! The deal was that she would give me £5 a month until she had paid me back, which I could cope with as long as I was careful not to buy anything frivolous. When the next month came round, she couldn’t manage to make the first payment, so I said she should wait for another month before she started paying. But the next month a crisis arose, and she put it off again. It was the same the following month, and I began to realize that I was never going to see any of the money again. This was, to be honest, a bit of a problem for me financially.
| Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Colossians 3.13–15 |
