Learning Contentment

"...for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am." Philippians 4:11b

As we finished our study of Philippians Sunday in Christian education, Mike gave us the following from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones's Spiritual Depression, Its Causes and Cures (p. 284):

SEVEN STEPS IN PAUL'S THOUGHT PROCESS FOR CONTENTMENT

Paul had come to learn this truth (Philippians 4:11) by working out a great argument. Let me give you some of the steps of the argument which you can work out for yourself. I think that the Apostle's logic goes something like this. He said to himself:

1. Conditions are always changing: therefore I must obviously not be dependent upon conditions.
2. What matters supremely and vitally is my soul and my relationship to God - this is the first thing.
3. God is concerned about me as my Father, and nothing happens to me apart from God. Even the very hairs of my head are numbered. I must never forget that.
4. God's will and God's ways are a great mystery, but I know that whatever he wills or permits is, of necessity, for my good.
5. Every situation in life is the unfolding of some manifestation of God's love and goodness. Therefore my business is to look for each special manifestation of God's goodness and kindness and to be prepared for surprises and blessings (Is. 55:8). What, for example is the great lesson that Paul learned in the matter of the thorn in the flesh? It is that "When I am weak then am I strong." Through physical weaknesses Paul was taught this manifestation of God's grace.
6. Therefore I must not regard circumstances and conditions in and of themselves, but as a part of God's dealing with me in the work of perfecting my soul and bringing me to final perfection.
7. Whatever my conditions may be at this present moment they are only temporary, they are only passing, and they can never rob me of the joy and the glory that ultimately await me with Christ.

I suggest that Paul had reasoned and argued it out like that. He had faced conditions and circumstances in the light of the Christian truth and the Christian gospel, and had worked out these steps and stages. And having done so he says: 'Let anything you can think of happen to me, I remain exactly where I was. Whatever may happen to me, I am left unmoved.'