Contentment and Finally "Getting It"

It's so cool how God illuminates bits and pieces of different things to me and then -- BAM! -- one day it all just comes into focus and the sky splits open. I can see again. One aspect of my blindness is gone. Bit by bit my Father lets a little more light into that space in my heart, then suddenly, I can see it all.

This morning I was reading Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. The gist of it is that our struggles with food and weight are all related to our desire for something more, but we can't tolerate sitting with that desire so for various reasons we try to squelch it with food. I highlighted this quote by John Tarrant,

"All wanting -- for love, to be seen for who we are, for a new red car is wanting to find and be taken into this mysterious depth in things."*

Then just after his quote, Geenen writes, "By collapsing the whole of our wanting into something as tangible as butterscotch pudding, we cancel poetry, sacredness, longing from our lives and resign ourselves to living with hearts banged shut."

The way she said that made me realize that since I was a teenager, I thought that being "content" meant that I didn't want anything. That I had no "right" to want anything. So anytime I felt a "want" (and don't get me started on the difference between things we "want" and things we "need"...argh...), I struggled with it. I suppressed it. But the sad thing is, those wants never really go away. And anything we try and satisfy outside of faith, outside of trusting God, is sin. (See Romans 14:23.)

So what finally clicked for me today is that being content doesn't mean we don't want something more, something better, something bigger, something brighter. It means that we are okay with the wanting itself. It's okay to want something, and it's also okay to not get it. Just let the wanting be what it is.

I have this tendency to tell myself "love doesn't demand its own way," as an excuse for not saying, or not asking for, what I want. Hmm...I think there must be a big difference between expressing a desire and demanding that things be done your way. And the bizarre flip side to all this, is I would NEVER place that expectation on someone else. I would never tell a friend, my spouse, or my kids that it's not okay to want certain things. God gives us the desires of our hearts. He actually plants those desires in us to get us moving in the right direction. 

So why am I so hard on myself? Is it because secretly, deep down, I think that while I'm capable of living that kind of austere (read: self-righteous) existence, other people aren't? Ick. Isn't that just beyond arrogant? But you know what? I'm going to give myself a little grace (like I would anyone else!).

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." -- Ranier Maria Rilke

 

*(My best friend, Rae, is smiling right now, because she knows that if a quote has the word "mystery" in it, I'm sure to highlight it. I am all about embracing the mysterious side of God!)