6 February 2015 - content with too little contentedness

be content with what you have,
for he has said, I will never forsake you or abandon you.

We often qualify this with conditions. We say, 'I will be content with what I have as long as' and insist on a certain minimum. We are people who can imagine ourselves to be easily content yet still leave room for the possibility of catastrophic failure.

But actually, if we know Jesus, we may say with confidence:

The Lord is my helper,
and I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?

We think that it is good enough to be easily content rather than always content. We are content with a contentedness that is too partial. It leaves fear lurking in the backgrounds of our hearts. It is an unexamined belief that there is something that can snatch us from the hands of God. Or it is the belief that there is something that we need more than God. Let's try to think about these things the way Paul does. Let's ask, "What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?"

With this question as our starting point we are able to remember our leaders who spoke the word of God, consider the outcome of their lives, and imitate their faith. We are able to imitate John the Baptist. We can proclaim the truth in season and out of season (cf. 2 Tim. 4:2) no matter how Herod and his family feel about it. Even if we find much of the freedom we're used to taken from us we can be content in our prison cells because we hear Jesus say:

Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor (cf. Luk.  7:22).

Does this give us courage? Or does it make us jealous, we in a prison cell, and mighty deeds happening everywhere but here? If we say...

 The Lord is my helper,
and I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?

...we are not jealous. We are courageous. We have the one thing necessary. Yet we delight to hear that his glory is being revealed more and more int he world (cf. Luk. 10:42). This works when we have a clear idea of who Jesus is. He is not John the Baptist raised from the dead or Elijah. He is emphatically not a prophet like any of the prophets. He is the Word made flesh. He is God with us, Emmanuel. And with him in our boats we need not fear any storm (cf. Mar. 4:37-41). He is enough!

We can imitate Paul Miki and the martyrs of Nagasaki. They know Jesus. They are able to endure what we consider catastrophic failure in their circumstances and still say, "I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" They have no minimum baseline for comfort after which they draw back. Hearts like this are filled with courageous no matter what life brings.

Though an army encamp against me,
my heart will not fear;
Though war be waged upon me,
even then will I trust.