wanting - #3 in series - being content

"Happiness is being satisfied with what you already have."

I don't know/can't remember who to attribute this to....but I've heard it in the yoga community, and I like it.

The obvious answer to the argument that Christians shouldn't avoid having kids for selfish reasons, or that they should want to have more kids is this:



1) Nothing should be done or avoided for selfish reasons (even having kids, which my friend did point out during our conversation).



2) If you are vain, materialistic and self-centered, then you are not content with what God has already given you. I would not counsel a person struggling with contentedness to want something new, some different circumstance, even if that something is generally good and a blessing.

I Corinthians 7 is Paul's treatise on this very subject. After discussing many possible life stations: married, single, a virgin, widowed, a slave, circumcised or uncircumcised, he councils:

Vs 17: "Only, everyone should live as the Lord has assigned, just as God called each one. " ESV


Vs 24: "So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God." ESV

Most interesting to me is that Paul had a personal opinion:

8To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.

And he had a genuinely good intention behind his opinion:

32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.

40Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

It is natural to think that God's call in your life is good for everyone. Paul genuinely valued his singleness and saw its benefits. But he didn't prescribe that calling to everyone. He readily admits, "6Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another."

So - let us live contentedly with the gift God has given us now, until He sees fit to give us another.