Contentment Devotional At any cost? And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2 And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. 3 And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. 4 And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. 1 Kings 21:1-4 Power, prestige and paychecks, enough of all three undoubetedly makes life easier in some ways. But each has its pitfalls too. Because Ahab was king of Israel, he had more than anyone in the nation. Yet for all his wealth he couldnt get everything he wanted. He wanted his neighbors back yard and when his request was denied he fell into a funk. But his not having that land wasnt the real cause of his self pity. It was the fact that someone stood in his way. One of the reasons we pour ourselves into aquiring more money, power, and prestige is so we can get what we want and avoid what we hate. The neighborhood is changing and not for the better, lets move uptown. I know you dont like to spend money eating out but I do. If you come with me, ill pick up the check. She has no right to talk to me like that! Ive been serving on this committee a lot longer than she has! Because he was king, ahab could have taken naboths land by force. But ahab didnt pull rank on baboth. In fact he made him generous offer for the vieyard. But his attempt at generosity was nothing more than a shiny veneer covering his demanding self seeking heart. Are we like ahab? we are if we find ourselves frustrated and angry when our resources of time, effort money and verbal finesse fail to solve a problem or to bring about something we hope for. We are if like ahab we allow the lack of one thing to ruin our enjoyment of all else we have, the single woman who wants a husband so badly that she cant appreciate her friends, her job, her home, or her church; the wife who stops building into her marriage because pren=gnancy just isnt happening, the gifted Bible teacher who wont use her skills at all because she is told she cant use them for the pulpit. What are we to do when all our efforts fail and we cant get something we want? We can demand it any cost, which is what ahab did. In the long run he got the vineyard but only because he joined in a plot to have naboth killed. We can get a lot of things by sidestepping Gods ways but whatever we get in wrong ways will bring only more misery. There is however a better answer, we can let go. Ismt it better to go without if God is not the giver? Everything on earth lies at Gods beck and call, and therefore he is well able to provide us the thing we long for if it seems good to him to do so. Are we willing to let go and leave the matter in his hands? If we will just let go, we will find ourselves content with or without our hearts desire.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 19:23:57 +0000