I love Laura Story's music. She is a young, christian artist who not only sings and plays piano and guitar, but is also a gifted writer with spiritual wisdom beyond her years. Although her next CD, "Blessings", won't be released until April, I heard her title song from the CD on the radio and then looked it up online and have since listened to it a dozen times. One line continues to play in my head:
"What if my greatest disappointments, or the aching in this life
is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?"
The point of the song is this, I think: we pray and wait for our disappointments and suffering to end, but often times the greatest blessings God gives us come from those very trials. And a very important purpose for our trials is to remind us that we are strangers here and there is something better coming...in fact, something altogether perfect, satisfying, completely fulfilling.
This is not our home. That's why life is so uncomfortable. Or it should be anyway. Though we are to work toward contentment, this life is not supposed to be satisfying. If God would have His way, life should leave us wanting. Wanting more of Him. Wanting Heaven. So where is the line between being content as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians, and yearning for something more than what this world can give us? Or does He intend for us to blend the two? Does true contentment only come when we are desperately seeking Him?
1 Timothy 6:6 says "there is great gain in godliness with contentment." That seems to suggest that you can try to be godly while being discontent, but you're not going to gain much spiritually. But seek God with all your heart and strive to be content with a simple life, and you will gain much.
Part of contentment in this life is being okay with trials. Easier said than done, but then God never said it would be easy. But He did promise He would give all the strength we would need for every trial, and better yet, He promises that one day all our trials and suffering will be over and Heaven will be our home. But until then, He wants us to take one day at a time, desperately seeking Him and finding blessings even in our disappointments. And not overlooking the blessing that our pain reminds us that this is not our home. There's a better home awaiting us.
What a glorious thought.
