Contented and Unsatisfied
The following is an adapted excerpt from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.
“I remember reading through Jeremiah Burroughs’ book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, a number of years ago. He’s so precise and so meticulous a physician of the heart in applying that scalpel, in helping us to ask questions to whether we really are content. It’s a masterful piece of Biblical counseling and careful heart work.”
Kevin DeYoung ( PURITAN: All of Life to the Glory of God )
But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing
into the world and we can take nothing out of it.
1 Timothy 6:6–7
It may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world. These two together are mysterious. You have never learned the mystery of contentment unless it may be said of you that, just as you are the most contented person, so you are also the most unsatisfied person in the world.
You will say, “How is that?” Here is the mystery of it: though a man’s heart is so enlarged that the enjoyment of all the world and ten thousand worlds cannot satisfy him for his portion, yet he has a heart quieted under God's arrangements for him, if he gives him but bread and water. Though he is content with God in a little, yet those things that would content other men will not content him. The men of the world seek after wealth and think that if they had thus much and thus much, they would be content. They do not aim at great things.
But a gracious heart says that if he had ten hundred thousand times more money a year, it would not satisfy him; if he had the quintessence of all the excellences of all the creatures in the world, it could not satisfy him; and yet this man can sing, and be merry and joyful when he has only a crust of bread and a little water.
Surely Christianity is a great mystery! Great is the mystery of godliness, not only in the doctrinal part of it, but in the practical part of it also. Godliness teaches us this mystery, not to be satisfied with all the world for our portion, and yet to be content with the lowliest condition in which we are.
When Luther was sent great gifts by Dukes and Princes, he refused them, and he says, “I did vehemently protest that God should not put me off so…tis not that which will content me.” A soul that is capable of God can be filled with nothing else but God. Though a gracious heart knows that it is capable of God, and was made for God, carnal hearts think without reference to God. But a gracious heart, being enlarged to be capable of God, and enjoying somewhat of him, can be filled by nothing in the world; it must only be God himself.
Meet the author:
Jeremiah Burroughs
Jeremiah Burroughs, a 17th-century English Congregationalist, was a well-known Puritan preacher and author. He is recognized for his devotion to doctrinal purity and to unity among believers.