A love robber

The rain came down in sheets, misting my back as I rocked back and forth. Here I am home after a summer of refreshing and restarting and everything feels the same....only worse. I am discontent feeling no drive to do anything and every person I contact is either ignoring me or out of town. When I pray God feels silent and my rocking just increases, like the wind, like the downward spiral of my mood.

It had been a good day. Beauty and relaxation. Laughter with my roommates...but this nagging for something more drove me on. I tried to write but all I could write about is how I have failed everyone as a writer. How the stories never materialize and my heart always wants something more and no matter what I won't be happy.

I tried to go to Saturday night church but missed it and even in this rainstorm I was thwarted from having a firepit. The internet won't work so I can't pay bills and cleaning...there is always cleaning. So I sat rocking in the rain. Not remembering my prayer of that morning that I would long for and desire God, that the world would leave me empty and dissatisfied. Then I walked Downstairs to go to bed early and noticed that one of my roomies had gotten two red box movies. Suddenly everything flooded in like the water raging in the street. The prayer and morning devotions...the red box movie was one I had asked God to let me watch with just Him...weeks ago. And here I was walking around gloomily while He had organized a flood outside, my roommates all gone, and the exact random movie I had asked about. So there I sat preparing for an awesome date night with the Lord pondering His wonderful funny love! And my horrible attitude!

The next day the pastor opened his sermon with this, "What robs us of contentment"  We studied Philippians 4...and David and Goliath!  It  never ceases to amaze me how often God will take me into an intense emotional situation and then break everything open in my heart at church the next day answering all the questions.  I have never understood contentment's meaning except as a feeling of happiness and comfort...I guess.  Apparently back in the day when I our forefathers declared that we have 'The right to pursue happiness'  they were not actually talking about this emotional feeling of comfort and the meeting of our every desire.  They were saying that everyman has the right to pursue land.  And there is something amazing and empowering to being a land owner...but I would not call it cozy comfort.  IT carries responsibility and work and a feeling of satisfaction but it doesn't feel like that lazy comfort of an arm chair.  

The word I guess originated from a time when walled cities were attacked by siege and that cities that were self contained and could provide for all of their people for endless years were considered 'content' cities, they had all they needed, they knew it and the enemy knew it.   A believer who is content in all seasons knows they have what they need at all times.  Which then gives us the strength to step out in crazy and amazing ways because we know we are safe so we do not fear. We can take great leaps of faith because we know God is with and in us.  

Robbery of our contentment happens when we start to seek comfort instead of seeking God.  Like Israel with the Philistines before David came.  There was a big risk for them to attack the Philistines so they got comfortable yelling their battle cry, then going back to their tents, letting this giant blaspheme their God and protector.  They sought their comfort instead of knowing they were content with What God had and who He had said they were.  Then when David came he heard Goliath and couldn't believe they would let him speak about God and Israel the way he did.  So he went to challenge him with just what he had brought. They tried to add comfort and protection on to him, but he took only what God had given him. He was content with who he was and what he could do with God.  

At the end of the sermon I realized that I too had been looking, the day of the rainstorm, to add on to me.  I was looking for the comfort.  I was seeking after things that would make me feel good. Wanting to add on things to me that would give me more comfort in the moment instead of letting myself sit in the awkwardness knowing that I am contained with all that I need and content in God's love for me.  It is those times, I have noticed, when I seek after comfort that I tend to feel the most dissatisfied and anxious.  I lose sight of gathering the magnificent tiny pieces of God's love and mystery all around me, and the uncomfortable work that sometimes goes with it.  

We cannot add or take away from love.  If we enter relationships knowing we are first content with God's love for us and not hoping that person will make us feel the comfort of love then we will give and receive love with abandon. Love will grow and flourish and we will have comfort but it will be richer because it will have come with a price.  It is when we become seekers of comfort in relationships so we do not address areas of hurt, or areas that scare us that we begin to lose our love and grow stale...almost like hoarders taking their love that is never enough and adding it to the pain they have caused that we hold against them.  If we are content in God's love first then we can love others honestly and without fear of their reactions when giants and robbers come in to steal because then we are not desperately trying to hold on to the comfort of the feeling of love, but what love actually is. Love is born out of Christ's love, sacrifice and not comfort.  This seeking of comfort in love will destroy it.