Need Authentic Contentment (With Poison Ivy And Insanely Swollen Eyes)?
A little past halfway through 2024, and I am reviewing a few of the things I've learned from my Word of the Year: CONTENT. Here are two quick lessons we all can use!
Welcome to the first Friday in August 2024. I make note of this for two reasons. First, it’s really hot here in KC. Temperatures have been nearing triple digits all week. At least in the Midwest, we are in the dog days of summer.
A Word of the Year Recap
This leads to my second note: these hot August days mark a month into the second half of 2024. I began the year with a series of posts on how I have grown spiritually and as a human being over the last 15 years through the Word of the Year project.
This month, I want to encourage you in your Word of the Year journey with how my year has gone so far and what I’ve learned from this project in 2024. If you haven’t been participating in this project (or you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about), here are a few posts to catch you up:
The Word of the Year project takes the traditional New Year’s resolution and boils it down to one word. What is one word you can learn and grow from in 2024? Since growth is not confined to a calendar, it’s not too late to join! And, there is nothing super spiritual or complicated to begin. Here is how I chose my word this year:
As you can see, I brainstormed a list of words and then narrowed them down until I landed on one word: CONTENT. (For clarity, this is contentment, not making more content for social media, etc). I gave myself a few days to come to this word. There is no reason to rush, overthink, or over-spiritualize this step. My experience is God works in the process, not the word.
Once I had my word, I further brainstormed what CONTENT meant to me as I began the year. Here’s what that looked like:
My handwriting might be hard to decipher, so here are a few of the things I scribbled down:1
Be okay with all God has given me
Material possessions
Combating greed in my life
I gave myself a baseline for the meaning of contentment in my life. As you’ll see, the definition of CONTENT will grow during the year, but I had a firm beginning of what I saw as I started the year. From this place (I made that note on January 1), I’ve grown in understanding contentment and how to find it more consistently.
For the rest of this month, I will share three lessons I’ve learned about CONTENT in the first half of the year. Each of these lessons, on their own, are solid, encouraging notes, but the real value is putting each lesson (big and small) together into the whole of 2024. This is what you should gain from your Word of the Year.
Before I sign off for today, I thought I’d share two little nuggets from early on in the process.
1. Hard Work
A great way to dive into my Word of the Year is by looking up theme-based devotionals through the Bible app. As I’ve read about CONTENT, one scripture has been threaded through these devotions.
“Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.” -1 Timothy 6:6 NLT
I’ll be honest with you. I was frustrated at the repetitiveness of this verse. I wondered, “Is this the best people can come up with when considering this topic?” On the other hand, it forced me to meditate and think about what the Apostle Paul was telling his protege.
The obvious words jumping from the page are ‘godliness’ and ‘contentment,’ but the ‘great wealth’ (the benefit) is a close third. As I thought about the reward of living with godliness and contentment, I thought about what that would mean in a physical or material sense — money, possessions, stuff. Material wealth isn’t the point of the scripture, so what is Paul trying to convey?
The wealth Paul is talking about is a deep, rich spiritual life.
So, Paul is conveying what it takes to receive wealth in our life. How does anyone build material wealth in this world? Unless you are born rich or win the lottery, wealth comes from hard work. We must do the work and be smart with what we’ve earned in order to build our net worth.
Contentment is no different.
If I want to be content, I need to work at it. It is not natural or easy.
This can be a disappointing realization (no one likes hard work), but it is also encouraging. If I am not content today, I know it’s not hopeless. I can work to build contentment in my life, and one of the keys is thankfulness.
2. Thankfulness
Looking back through my 2024 notes on CONTENT2, I’ve logged a few ‘gratitude’ notes. I haven’t done it as often as I would like, but the few times I did cement for me the importance of the practice. Reading the 3-4 things I was grateful for a few months back took me to a place of contentment today.
One of my favorite verses is about this subject, again from the Apostle Paul, this time writing to the Thessalonian church.
“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” -1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT
The trick about thankfulness in difficult times comes down to the smallest of words: ‘in.’ Paul tells us to be thankful in all circumstances—the good, bad, great, and horrible. We don’t need to be thankful for negative things; this is where a gratitude journal comes in. Reading back through the things I was grateful for a few months ago reminded me to be thankful during the difficult things I face now.
As I write this post, my eyes are swollen, and my face and forehead are on fire with what I believe to be a rash from poison ivy (I have a doctor’s appointment later this afternoon). It’s been an irritant and frustration for the past 24 hours.
However, looking back at my gratitude for my daughter’s impending college graduation, a quiet morning months ago, and even our health insurance helped me be CONTENT in less-than-ideal circumstances. I am not thankful for this rash, but in the midst of it, I am thankful for so many other things in my life.
Gratitude leads me to contentment.
What have you learned in 2024?
Take a few moments today to consider this question. Jot your answers down somewhere (your phone, a notebook, or a sticky note). Then, come back and share what you’ve learned so far.
My lessons are the tip of the iceberg from this community of readers.
If you are wondering, I take these notes using an Apple iPad Mini, an Apple pencil, and the Notability app. I love writing with a pen and paper, but I don’t like the lack of a central digital location for these notes. In the past, I’d use physical pen and paper but be frustrated that I couldn’t easily look back at all of those notes in one place.
Within the Notability app I can create different ‘notebooks’ divided into ‘folders’. I have a folder labeled ‘Journals’ with 5-6
notebooks. I have a 2024 journal for thoughts on CONTENT and a 2024 Bible journal for taking notes on my daily Bible reading.