The Key to Choosing Contentment and Finding Peace in Your Life

My perspective gets all jumbled up most days. How about you?

Our hearts can easily shift and sway as emotions bounce around us, instead of grasping reality.  In this day and age, it can be hard to keep choosing contentment and finding peace in your life because of loud voices distracting you from what is truly important. We all face the tough road to stay positive, remain upbeat, and walk in confidence while we leave fear and anxiety far behind.

Do you struggle with losing your perspective and begin to grumble with a discontented heart?  Are you struggling with choosing contentment and finding peace in your life?

Unfortunately, our discontentment shrouds itself within our hearts in the form of a swirling cloud of self-centeredness. We are set up for failure when we compare ourselves with airbrushed social media personas, and swan dive into defeat as victims. The enemy loves to tease as we grasp for the illusive golden key while our heart beats with ungrateful attitudes.

In reality, our discontentment comes from a host of nasty places and they typically are centered around self. God challenges each one of us who struggle with discontentment and calls us to overcome it with a heart of thankfulness and joy.

Let’s use these simple heart checks and see how the Lord is handing us the key as we being choosing contentment and finding peace in your life.

1. Finding Contentment With Our Surroundings

Home improvement. Self improvement. Social improvement. Intellectual improvement. Financial improvement. It’s all good when it’s kept in perspective and with a godly purpose. But, that can be rare on most days.  

God was content to send His only Son into a stinking, manure-laden stable as a newborn. Jesus was content with a smelly fishing boat full of amateur fishermen, whom He dearly loved, but abandoned Him. He was content to live life with the lepers, social outcasts, and those who couldn’t give back. Jesus Christ was content to be homeless, misunderstood, and to suffer. He was content with being beaten, mocked and crucified. 

Why?  

Because He had perspective and surrendered His will. Jesus knew this world was not His home because He had oneness with the Father. He was always about His Father’s business. Therefore, He chose to go, meet desperate soul needs, and transfer them from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

Can I be honest? I’ve caught myself whining about not gaining enough followers on social media, and moaning about inactive Pinterest boards as a blogger. (As I sit in comfortable, American home, casually browse the internet for the perfect dream home décor, and attempt to perfect an illusive strategy for life.) Truthfully, shame on me!

Do we display impatience in traffic, fume at the slow drive-thru, or mutter under our breath in the check out line? Have we mistreated the ones we are supposed to love the most because they inconvenienced, embarrassed, or hurt us? Signs of a discontented heart rear their ugly heads in the craziest ways and our joy seems lost in the mix. Our polished cups get bumped and what sloshes out isn’t always what we hope is true about us.

God, we desperately need a new perspective of our lives.

Recently I had asked the Lord to help me be more content with my surroundings and expose anything in my heart that caused Him grief. He was quick to answer that prayer yesterday-at a funeral home. Contentment comes when I choose quality time with people over trinkets and treasures.

A Heart Checklist: Tips for Choosing Contentment

1. A life well-lived for Jesus is an eternal investment, worldly investments will fade.
2. Loving others well, having a clear testimony, and building up others is more comforting than a well-furnished home.
3. Being a safe place for others to spiritually bleed is more satisfying than growing analytics.
4. Sharing the gospel is a better life goal than anything the world can offer.
5. Finding peace and contentment in your life comes from having the faith to seek Him.

2. Finding Contentment With Our Service

Horizontal living on a treadmill of competition and comparison is a sure-fire way to become discontent, divisive, and disillusioned. 

I had spent so many years comparing my life to those around me, doing what they were doing, in hopes of having the same stellar results. Little did I know, it was an outward performance rather than a genuine inward transformation. They were faking it while they were making it and I took it in hook, line, and sinker. Have you ever done that as well – doing what others do in hopes to become a new and improved version of you?

Social media doesn’t help us out here. Not one iota. To be honest, the self-help gurus and the latest Tic-Tok trends make it much worse. Typically, someone else will always outperform, outshine, and outlast us.

God has to bend, break, and teach us to look at Him and what His calling is for each of us individually.

Jesus is content living and moving through us, simply because we are His, not because we do such a grandiose job at living well. He will take care of showcasing Him through His power, when we step out of the way and let the Holy Spirit work.

Are we available to serve in little places where there is no spotlight, no selfies, no comments, and no self promotions? Do we get dirty with real messes in life, or do we hide behind a keyboard and polish the outward appearance?  Are we available to meet the deepest needs of our family and friends, or is our time spent on pleasing the masses and promoting self?

God, we need You to give us perspective on how we serve.

During my conversations with God this week, He was quick to answer that prayer. I took Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook off my phone and went on a long walk with a friend. I placed solid boundaries on my phone and I found that choosing contentment comes when I choose souls over social media.

A Heart Checklist: Tips for Choosing Contentment

1. The Lord’s approval is better than man’s.
2. God’s calling and clarity far outweighs the clicks and comparisons.
3. It is better to be broken by what breaks God’s heart, than live a shattered life built on others assumptions.
4. Whatever increases His glory and crucifies my flesh is a good thing.
5. Finding peace and contentment in your life comes from a heart surrendered to His will.

3. Finding Contentment With God

I have an idolatrous heart just like everyone else does. I get busy and burned out with my calendar, career, and creative outlets it makes my head spin. There are days when doing the dishes replaces my devotions, and my prayer time turns into a nap. There are days when I purposely avoid reading my Bible because I am just too busy with other things. Am I the only one dangling on that meathook?

We let our self-centered idols run us into a rut of empty living. We look for fulfillment in so many other things than Jesus. Whether it’s a clean house, happy family, or fun times with friends, it can quickly rise to the top of our to-do list. Maybe it’s experiencing a nice balance in the checkbook or growing a more relevant social circle that trips us up? While all of those things are normal desires, they can bring a temporary sense of being settled which can quickly begin to fade. 

Are we trading soul peace for a scattered schedule and frazzled nerves? Are we content with lazy prayers, mediocre devotions, and burned out calendars?

God, we need You to give us a new perspective of You.

Once again, He was quick to answer that heartfelt prayer as well. So, He plunged me into deep waters. Waves came crashing over my head causing me to gasp for air and grasp for Him. Problems which seem so overwhelming and insurmountable that my heart could only cry out, “Jesus I choose You above all else!”. Issues out of my control began mounting, and causing me to drop to my knees in utter dependence. Each wave of grief made me more dependent on God and helped me find peace in the storms of life.

True contentment with God isn’t about our problems being fixed to our specifications. A deep sense of peace comes from believing and trusting God is actively working and present in our problems even when He seems silent.

Contentment with God comes when He is all we have left to cling to. He is the only One powerful enough to intervene, and I am grateful that Jesus is enough.

A Heart Checklist: Tips for Choosing Contentment

1. Contentment with God is directly dependent on our level of humility.
2. Trading temporary comforts for deeper relationship with Christ is a win.
3. Time spent in prayer, scripture reading, and worship expands our capacity for gratitude.
4. A lazy spiritual life leads to heartache and hopelessness.
5. Finding Contentment in your life comes through faith in believing He is able and sufficient for all things.

Let’s pray. Father God, forgive me for the discontented self-centered heart that so easily strays from You. Guide me into a deeper relationship with you where I can keep my eyes off of me and gaze on eternal things. You are my key to choosing contentment and finding peace in my life. Help me to run with arms wide open after Your heart, and trade the temporary things of this world for more of You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.