The Secret Sauce of Contentment - Part 1
The Secret
Do you want to know a secret?
To get in on something and to experience it for yourself, you need to know the secret sauce.
KFC famously make their chicken from a secret blend of eleven herbs and spices. A copy of the recipe is held in a secure vault in their headquarters, along with 11 separate vials that each contain one of the ingredients. Similarly, the secret recipe for Coke is known by only a few people in the world and is held within a massive vault in a wonderfully named area called the Chamber of the Secret Formula.
This does not just hold true for food. It holds true for one of the most important things we experience in this life: contentment.
In his superb little book, The Greener Grass Conspiracy, Stephen Altrogge defines contentment as ‘a disposition of the heart that freely and joyfully submits to God’s will, whatever that will may be.[1]
Gulp. That is quite something.
by Dan Roach
If we are honest, most of us tend to struggle with discontentment at different points in our lives and even at multiple different points in our days!
We can sometimes tend to be quite up and down in our emotions depending on what is going on in our lives. Do we have enough money? Will we get that promotion? Or, it could be, how out friends and family are treating us. When we get what we want, we often feel happy, and when life does not go our way, we can become sad, angry and frustrated and begin to complain. Rather than feeling settled and satisfied with what we have, we can constantly be looking to the horizon for the next thing, convinced that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence where things are somehow better (even though in reality they are often not - as a friend once said to me, ‘the grass may be greener, but it’s just as difficult to chew’). As Christians, if we are not careful, we can often buy into the lies that “God is withholding something from me”, “God owes me”, “If I get it, I’ll be happy” and “I know what’s best for me”.[2]
Yet the truth is, contentment is something which is available to us all as normal Christians. The recipe for it is not locked down in a vault somewhere and you do not need a special password to get your hands on it. It is not something mystical or weird and it is not reserved for only the favoured few.
This is available to you.
Amazingly, in Philippians 4:11-13, Paul says that he has ‘learned the secret’ of contentment and he tells us what it is. These verses are even more remarkable when you realise that these words were written from a Roman prison:
11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
I must have read this passage many times over the years, but I must be honest and say that when I reread it again recently, I still did not get it! I am glad that Paul got to a point where he was content with whatever situation he was in, but I did not understand how he got there or how we could get there either.
While these verses in Philippians 4 sometimes do not seem to get as much attention as you would expect in the commentaries,[3] they nevertheless provide some brilliant insights into what contentment is; how Paul learnt to be content; and how we can learn this as well. There are profound truths contained in these verses which can unlock this reality for us all, and enable us to access contentment for ourselves, whatever our situation or circumstances may be.
[1] Stephen Altrogge, The Greener Grass Conspiracy: Finding Contentment on Your Side of the Fence, p.28.
[2] These lies are taken from Altrogge, Greener Grass Conspiracy, pp.51-57.
[3] These verses come in the broader context of Paul’s discussion about the financial gift which the Philippians gave to Paul to support his ministry.