Life Update & Contentment

So what has been going on in our life? Well, we are still living with Dan’s parents and are really enjoying it. There are possibilities job-wise, but we are just waiting on God’s timing. We are still trying to make sense of everything with his previous job and we don’t know if we ever will be able to make full sense of it, which is hard. We are trying to just let go of it all and just move forward, which again, is tough. As for our kids – we miss them incredibly still. Days are easier, but our hearts still miss them and always will. Little things still get us going, but we are just still so thankful for those two little hooties who are in Heaven! God used them to change our life forever and we are forever grateful for them! It’s hard to think that they would be 10ish weeks old in Brenda’s womb this week (8 weeks “our” time – I still don’t get why you add 2 weeks), but we know God is watching over them and caring for them – what a joy that is to think about. God is using ALL that has been going on in our life, to change us. We are so blessed to have Tim and Brenda as such wonderful friends, to continue to walk this path with. We are blessed to be living with Dan’s family (pray that our house will get rented soon). We are blessed to just be in God’s arms. Life isn’t necessarily “easy,” but it is managable because of God. We just can’t WAIT to see what God has in store for us!

We are learning what it means to be content ourselves. Never imagined God using the situations He has to teach us this lesson, but we continue to learn what it means to be content with children in heaven, with not living in our house anymore, and to not be doing youth ministry right now. Learning to be content whatever the circumstances!

The Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21)

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

So why this parable? I think Jesus was trying to preach against storing up earthly treasures, only for them to be mist when we die. God even called the rich man a fool because he built bigger barns for his crops, but died before he could use them all. How sad! This guy spent ALL this time building bigger and better barns to hold all his stuff and he never got to enjoy it. I love what verse 20 says – “who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Again, what are we building – something that will only enrich myself or to build the kingdom of God?

Bigger and better doesn’t equal happiness. That happiness quickly fades – no matter how big or better it is. Learn to live with “enough.” Be content to say “enough is enough.”

If your income increases, do you just spend it? Or do you continue to live the same lifestyle and give more?

Do you have EXCESS everywhere where you need to start building bigger and better “barns?” Is your life so cluttered that you constantly dream of the bigger and better? I think contentment needs to step into the door.

As you start to think about how to simplify and possibly gain more contentment, write down what a content life would look like. Start eliminating things that don’t fit into that list.

Hopefully by the end of all of this we won’t dream of bigger and better barns!