Contentment

“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.”

“You know not what joys may be stored up for you in the cottage around which grace will plant the roses of content.”

“I had rather have God for my banker than all the Rothschilds.”

“Whether our Master shall say, 'Go' or 'Stay,' let us be equally well pleased as long as He indulges us with His presence.”

“If some talents were withheld, the Withholder knows why. He has done all things well.”

“God's smile and a dungeon are enough for a true heart!”

“The lazy Christian has his mouth full of complaints, when the active Christian has his heart full of comforts.”

“Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”

“Be sure of your call to every business you go about. Though it is the least business, be sure of your call to it; then, whatever you meet with, you may quiet your heart with this: I know I am where God would have me.”

“If I become content by having my desire satisfied, that is only self-love; but when I am contented with the hand of God and am willing to be at His disposal, that comes from my love to God.”

“A Christian comes to contentment, not so much by way of addition, as by way of subtraction.”

“Oh, that we could but convince men and women that murmuring spirit is a greater evil than any affliction, whatever the affliction!”

“You can never make a ship go steady by propping it outside; you know there must be ballast within the ship to make it go steady. So there is nothing outside us that can keep our hearts in a steady, constant way, but grace within the soul.”

“While I live in the world my condition is to be but a pilgrim, a stranger, a traveler, and a soldier.”

“A godly man has contentment by opening and letting out his heart to God.”

“It is but one side of a Christian to endeavour to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavour to be pleased with what God does.”

“So be satisfied and quiet, be contented with your contentment. I lack certain things that others have, but blessed be God, I have a contented heart which others have not.”

“I am discontented because I have not these things which God never yet promised me, and therefore I sin much against the Gospel, and against the grace of faith.”

“If you would get a contented life, do not grasp too much of the world, do not take in more of the business of the world than God calls you to.”

“To be well skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment is the duty, glory, and excellence of a Christian.”

“Thus, a godly man wonders at his cross that it is not more, a wicked man wonders his cross is so much.”

“Since God is content with Himself alone, if you have Him, you may be content with Him alone.”

“A noble heart is a thankful heart that loves to acknowledge whenever it has received any mercy.”

“If riches increase, set not your hearts upon them: so if friends increase, set not your hearts upon them, but trust in the living God, let it be the living God that you rest on even for all outward things in this world.”

“A little in the world will content a Christian for his passage, but all the world, and ten thousand times more, will not content a Christian for his portion.”

“Temptations will no more prevail over a contented man, than a dart that is thrown against a brazen wall.”

“Contentment is an inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, the whole soul, judgment, thoughts, will, affections and all are satisfied and quiet.”

“I have what I have from the love of God.”

“A godly man in the midst of the waves and storms that he meets with can see the glory of heaven before him and so contents himself.”

“Before your conversion, before God wrought upon your souls, you were contented with the world without grace, though you had no interest in God nor Christ; why cannot you now be contented with grace and spiritual things without the world?”

“There is more good in contentment than there is in the thing that you would fain have to cure your discontent.”

“If the children of God have their little taken from them, they can make up all their wants in God Himself.”

“never lay your comforts upon your condition, nor be in love with any condition for itself; let not your condition itself be the cause or bottom of your encouragements.”

“A contented man, just as he is the most contented, so he is the most unsatisfied man in the world.”

“He that is down need fear no fall.”

“They are full of outward comforts—they have their friends and children, they have estates, they have their tables well-furnished, and all the things that one would think would make the heart of almost any man content.”

“The foot should not desire the hand's employ--or the eye's higher seat.”

“As for the things of the earth, I do not set store by them, whether I have much or little; but hide not Thy commandments from me, Lord!”

“Though we meet with travellers' fare sometimes, yet it should not be grievous to us.”

“Thus are we to submit to the disposal of God in every condition.”

“God is more taken with Lazarus's patched coat, than with Dives's silken robe, etc.”

“I mention this now to show the danger of a full condition so that if you are not someone who has learned how to be full, you may plead with God to teach you how to be full.”

“I have all the desires of my heart in the covenant of God, though he take away the desire of mine eyes upon earth with his stroke.”

“They may go about their business in peace, and God provides for them.”

“Now, I am discontented and murmuring because I am afflicted; but this is why you are afflicted: God would humble you.”

“The dangers that men in a prosperous position have more than others should be considered by those who are lower.”

“A Christian makes over his will to God, and in making over his will to God, he has no other will but God's.”

“That bit of bread he has is with the love of God, and that sauce makes it relish sweet.”

“There is no such way to be rich—as to be poor and low in our own eyes.”

“Have good thoughts of God and make good interpretations of His dealings toward you.”

“So also will the warmth of prosperity cause one to shed the graces he held tightly in times of adversity.”

“O, it is a blessed thing to give all to God, to let God choose our inheritance.”

“There is no work that God has made—the sun, moon, stars, and all the world—in which so much of the glory of God appears as in a man who lives quietly in the midst of adversity.”

“You must make God's providential will and his operative will, your will as well as God's will, and in this way you must come to contentment.”

“It is not the greatness of the part, but the well acting of it.”

“No man can attain to the grace of Christian contentment if he is unable to handle his affliction; he must understand and know his affliction, or he cannot come to Christian contentment.”

“Another mysterious way a godly person learns how to abound is this: by sanctifying all that he has by the Word and prayer.”

“Why, you shall find likewise in Psalm 60 that David has as much of the blessing of God in his prosperous state as in his afflicted estate.”

“Grace teaches us how to make a mixture of gracious joy and gracious sorrow together—how to moderate and order an affliction so that there shall be a sense of it, and yet for all that contentment under it. 1.”

“I am discontented and would fain have a certain thing and afterwards I have it: now does this prepare me to be contented in other things?”

“If you could only cure your disquiet, if you could but quiet your own hearts and get them into a better frame of contentedness under God's hand in affliction, then you would find God's presence with you.”

“But, when we are anxious how our designs will succeed, we make it a torment to us in getting, before we can make it a comfort to us in enjoying.”

“A full condition is in danger of hindering those graces that are distinctly Christian.”

“There is an affliction upon you and that is grievous; but there is a murmuring heart within, and that is more grievous! 2.”

“Thy lands, thy houses, and fair estate, are but pictures of things.”

“They take great pains in the World, and meet with great disappointments: for both are signified by labouring in the fire; where what they produce cannot be enjoyed, but is consumed between their hands.”

“Ordinarily, people do not let their spirits out to only a little joy, but they let them out to such an extent that they have no command over their spirits.”

“But do you ever find it to be the case that those who did not seek God before were drawn to God by a full condition?”

“I am ready to think I have known as much of the good and happiness which this world can afford, as most people who live in it.”

“It is not enough for your tongue to be silent; but your soul must be silent.”

“While fullness may deaden the graces of other men, fullness will strengthen the graces of someone who knows how to be full.”

“Learn that man is born to hard work, and even the greatest on the earth are not exempted.”

“Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.”

“And the nearer we come to learning to deny ourselves as Christ did, the more contented shall we be.”

“We should look at all our outward prosperity as a preparation for afflictions .”

“When you are alone you should spend your time in holy meditation, but you are spending your time in discontented thoughts!”

“I have learned to be contented; what lessons have you learned?”

“Therefore think thus with yourself: Lord, why may not this affliction work as great a good upon me as afflictions have done before?”

“It is enough for him that must leave all, I know not how soon; have I little or much, I must leave all.”

“Grown men prefer one piece of gold above a thousand new pennies.”

“The truth is, the world is much better in shew than substance: and those very things we admire before we enjoy them, yet afterward we find much less in them than we expected.”

“But the right understanding of the particular way of God in His providence towards His people and saints is a notable lesson to help us in the art of contentment.”

“There is no condition that a godly man or woman can be in, but there is some promise or other in the Scripture to help him in that condition.”

“Let the ambitious man take the honors of the world, so I may but have Christ.”

“Likewise, God highly esteems those who constantly render to Him the rent of praise and honor for the many enjoyments they have in this world.”

“Oh, the rest, the peace, the comfort, the contentment—that the things of this world strip many men of!”

“My soul, if you are poor, it is not because God's blessings fail.”

“Such things as cause others to be dejected and fretted and vexed, and take away all the comfort of their lives make no alteration at all in the spirits of these men and women.”

“The only way to keep sweet contentment and comfort in Christian societies is to make the best interpretations of things we can.”

“When His people cannot have a providence of silk and roses, they must be content with such an one as He carveth for them.”

“The world thinks, 'Blessed are they on the pinnacle!' But Christ pronounces them blessed, who are in the valley.”

“Thus, you see that contentment brings comfort to a man’s life [and] fills it full of comfort in this world; the truth is, it is even a heaven on earth .”

“Thus, many will say that you must be content: “This is the hand of God and you cannot help it.” Oh, but this is too low an expression for Christians.”

“Do you look upon your condition with an evil eye now because God was once good to you?”

“Think to yourself: though they are above me, yet they are in more danger than I am.”

“A humble soul knows, that to bless God in prosperity is the way to increase it; and to bless God in adversity is the way to remove it.”

“A saint may say, "In having nothing, I have all things, because I have Christ.”

“If a man should enjoy many mercies and does not understand them, he has not learned how to be full.”

“Remember, one of the ways of knowing how to be in want is by having our afflictions sanctified to us.”

“A man that is able to deny himself in prosperity, will be able to believe in adversity; if he be prosperity proof, there is no fear but he will be adversity proof too.”

“When God would show the brand of a wicked man, He instances the sin of murmuring in a more special manner.”

“Thus, we do not always have summer, but winter succeeds summer; we do not always have day, but day and night; we do not always have fair weather, but fair and foul.”

“Their own desire and choice will please them but a little while.”

“He only can fill us; and with his fulness set our hearts at rest.”

“God has greatly honored virtuous poverty in every age —as the history of science, of literature, of philosophy, of poetry, and of piety in every country shows.”

“Likewise, if a man who is born with a great inheritance turns out to be a fool, you know that he will squander his estate.”

“No, you have not learned how to be full until you have learned how much you really need for your own use.”

“I need not be discontented and say, “My debt is not paid, and I am not satisfied.” Yes, you are satisfied, for he to whom you made over your debt is satisfied.”

“If they did consume us, we might wish them an end; but they do purge us, let us be content.”

“Now, for instance, when you say you will be merry and go visit your friends and have good cheer, God allows you to do so, as long as you know how to make good use of it.”

“Many of you have at one time or another solemnly promised this to God: that if He would preserve your wealth or perhaps restore you to the enjoyment of it, you would render it back up to Him to honor Him with it.”

“He who could have turned stones into bread, could as easily have turned stones into gold, and so have made his disciples rich and great in the world—but he would not.”

“But may we not take the comfort of those blessings that God gives us.”

“I am a stranger in the earth”—what then?—“then, Lord, let me have the knowledge of your commandments, and it is sufficient.”

“Yet when Christians come to visit one another, they say, 'Friend (or neighbor), you must be content.' Must be content is too low for a Christian.”

“Remember still that the pleasing of God is your business in the world, and that in pleasing him your souls may have safety, rest, and full content, though all the world should be displeased with you.”

“When we change our outward condition, be it to never so great advantage, we do not lose, but only change our cares.”

“Every man hath his complaints; and who liveth out of the reach of discontent?”

“We must "study" to be quiet, that is, study not to disturb others, nor to be ourselves disturbed by others: be ambitious of this, as the greatest honor, so the word signifies.”

“All our nearest and dearest relations are like a bouquet, which the oftener we smell to it, the sooner it withers.”

“There are commonly many foolish attitudes that a discontented heart is guilty of.”

“I say this text of Scripture in Numbers clearly holds forth that the Lord brings the plague upon men for this sin of murmuring; he does it in kingdoms and families, and on particular persons.”

“And the reason of this unsatisfactoriness in worldly things, is, because none of them are so good as the soul is.”

“But if a single aggravating circumstance arises that displeases them, they are thrown into such an angry and fretting condition that they lose all the benefit of their comforts.”

“What is all the world now to such a soul? where is all the bravery of it, or the malice and opposition of it?”

“Transitory worldly things, are not commensurate to the desires of the soul—therefore they cannot render him blessed.”

“For though I am crossed in some one particular thing, God attains His end—at least, His end may be furthered in a thousand things by this one thing that I am crossed in.”

“Now a contented man has his desires satisfied, God satisfies them, that is, all considered, he is satisfied that his circumstances are for the present the best circumstances.”

“And it causes many distractions in duty, it unfits for duty, and when you come to perform duties, oh, the distractions that are in your duties, when your spirits are discontented!”

“Probably the happiest person in many a large city in Christian lands is some child of God, whose bodily health makes him a stranger to sound sleep, and a stranger also to the house of God.”

“A Christian may be stripped of anything but his God; he may be stripped of his estate, his friends, his relations, his liberty, his life, but he can never be stripped of his God.”

“He who has God for his portion enjoys all; and he who lacks a saving interest and propriety in God enjoys nothing at all.”

“A Christian comes to contentment not so much by way of addition, as by way of subtraction.”