Hold Your Blessings with an Open Hand

God is more interested in your character than your comfort. He’s not going to give you things if you haven’t learned the principle of contentment first.

Contentment is not a lack of ambition. It’s not a lack of goals. Contentment means your happiness doesn’t depend on your circumstances.

How do you eliminate discontentment? For one thing, stop comparing. We compare everything—clothes, houses, cars, intelligence, even husbands and wives.

Whenever you compare, you’re going to feel discontentment. And so you’ve got to learn to stop comparing yourself to others.

Paul says in Philippians 4:12, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (NIV). Contentment does not come naturally; it is something we have to learn. If we do this, God promises to meet all our financial needs.

The Bible also says, “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it” (1 Timothy 6:6-7 NRSV).

One of the greatest secrets in learning to be content is to realize that you don’t really own anything. It’s all on loan to you for a few decades! You didn’t bring a single thing into this world, and you’re not going to carry anything out of it, either. You just get to use it while you’re here on earth.

The Bible calls that stewardship. You are the manager or steward of what God allows you to have while you’re here, but it’s not actually yours. When you understand that you’re just a manager of the blessings God allows in your life and you hold them with an open hand, you won’t be uptight about losing them. 

So what if you lose things? God can turn off one faucet and turn on another just as easily. Learn to be content because things don’t last. God is more interested in your character than your comfort.