discontent is rebellion

As God is so faithful, I cannot get away from the subject of thankfulness, gratefulness, contentment...whatever you'd like to call it...   A few weeks ago I was babysitting for some friends and noticed a book on their shelf that I've heard is a "must read."  The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Puritan Pastor Jeremiah Burroughs.  (First published in 1648, you can be sure that any book nearly 400 years old and reprinted 8 times since 1964 alone is worth the read!)   I began reading it that very night, asked if I could borrow it, and haven't put it down since. 

I wish now I had blogged about it as I read, for now I am nearly two-third's of the way done and I'm just now posting about it's effect on me.  Today as I was reading, these 400 year old words struck me, "When you feel your heart discontented and murmuring against the dispensations of God towards you, you should check it thus: Oh you wretched heart! What, will you be a rebel against God?  Will you rise in rebellion against the infinite God?  Yet you have done so.  Charge your heart with this sin of rebellion."

Why does it have to be rebellion to complain (murmur)?  Because God does nothing wrong.  Ever.  His ways are perfect.  Any calamity that befalls me is only a servant to me, to conform me to the image of Christ.  There is no real harm in it.  My soul is secure in Christ.  For me to murmur against difficulty or inconvenience is essentially murmuring against the God who orchestrates such events for my good.  When I murmur I express my opinion of how the situation SHOULD have been handled, had I been on the throne.

Here is a key bit of wisdom in the area of contentment: "A man who is little in his own eyes shall count every affliction as little, and every mercy as great."   This is rich wisdom.  I think I need to somehow get this on a canvas and hang it in my home.  Perhaps I'll paint it on a feature wall or somewhere in the house that forces me to see it every day.  I am not little enough in my own eyes.  I chaff and blister when I am put low and out of sight.  I grumble, even if I don't say it in audible form.  "To I myself in everything..." is a quote I've heard a friend use.  That really condenses it.  How have I "I'd myself" today?  I surely don't want to count them up.  As I become smaller in my own eyes, I have a suspicion that gratefulness and thanksgiving will begin to well up more frequently.