“I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess… Actually I don’t need anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content in my circumstances. I’m happy with little as with much, with much as will little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty, whatever I am, whatever I am not, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.” (Philippians 4:10a, 11-13 MSG)
I read it in the last few minutes before bedtime routine; how the happiest people are those who realized that God is enough. The statement settled into me like a truth I’ve already discovered in my own skin. Happiness that finds it’s source in the external will always be extinguishable, but joy found in internal/eternal? It can never be erased.
The thing is, we only find out that God is enough when the rest has been stripped away. It is in the bare discomfort of complete dependance that we discover the steadfast nature of our Creator-Sustainer. We cannot seem to squeak out our absolute reliance until all the lesser components are scraped back.
Corrie Ten Boom said it best; “You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have.” We recall how her existence was systematically reduced from community to concentration camp and we know she learned this truth by the cruelest means possible.
“I’m absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” (Romans 8:38-39 MSG)
Lord, help us live convinced that You are enough. May we see seasons of reduction as opportunities for concentration. Your enoughness becomes apparent when our own resources run low. May we, like Paul, find true happiness in You. Amen.
Here’s the link for the article I cited: https://thoughtcatalog.com/rania-naim/2017/05/the-happiest-people-are-those-who-realized-that-god-is-enough/?fbclid=IwAR3TtaVzBLdczplhRFVYMwrMyilb2DrVobDnkAiHqjd5Qb-jV2MluYyC-lk