There was a young man who was never very patient with his present circumstances. One day a lady gave him a magic ball with a string. Every time he pulled the string time would pass. He could pull it out a little bit, for as small of an amount of time as a few seconds, or a lot, for months or years to pass. The only stipulation was once he pulled it out he could not go back in time.
He came to a stop light shortly after he had received it and decided to see if it would work. He pulled it out a tiny bit and sure enough the light was instantly green and he was driving again. The next day he was sitting in class bored by the teacher, remembering the ball he pulled it out gave the string a tug and class was then over. As different things came up in his life he found himself using the ball more and more. Soon he was graduated, married and had children. Even with these things he would find himself unsatisfied and pulled the string so that his kids were a little older, than graduated and married themselves. He finally got closer to the end of his life and realized he hadn't really lived any of it. When times got tough he just pulled the string to make the hard times go away. What he realized was that the every day things were what gave meaning to life, and he had simply let them all go by in pursuit of the "big" things. He found out the hard way that the easy life doesn't have much purpose and that it is the everyday challenges that give life flavor and purpose.
My friend read me that story about a year ago, and it gave me a great mental picture of the true blessing of contentment in our lives. It's so easy to wish away the present in pursuit of something better, and while we never want to grow complacent, to simply wish away all the everyday moments of life in order to get to the really good parts is essentially to wish away the really good parts.
We were talking tonight at our devo about the difference between contentment and complacency. My sister mentioned that contentment was finding happiness in the circumstances we couldn't change while complacency was leaving the things we could change the same. I thought that was a pretty good way to look at it, because it provides the right balance for our lives. By being content we take the circumstances out of our control and make the best of them, and by not becoming complacent we continually improve life as it is so that it becomes the best that it can be. If however we try to switch the two, disastified feelings will soon take over and we'll find ourselves wishing the best parts of our lives (the everyday moments) away, and lose the significance of the big things because we won't have invested daily in the things we love.
"But godliness with contentment is great gain." ~ 1 Timothy 6:6
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