1. [Contentment comes by not dwelling long over your afflictions.]
Let not men and women pour too much upon their afflictions: that is, busy their thoughts too much to look down into their afflictions. You find many people, all of whose thoughts are taken up about what their afflictions are, they are always thinking and speaking of them. It is just with them as with a child who has a sore: his finger is always on the sore; so men’s and women’s thoughts are always on their afflictions. When they awake in the night their thoughts are on their afflictions, and when they converse with others–it may be even when they are praying to God–they are thinking of their afflictions. Oh, no marvel that you live a discontented life, if your thoughts are always poring over such things. You should rather labor to have your thoughts on those things that may comfort you. There are many who, if you propound any rule to them to do them good, will take it well while they are with you, and thank you for it, but when they are gone they soon forget it.
It is very noteworthy of Jacob, that when his wife died in child-birth, she called the child Ben-oni, that is, a son of sorrows. But Jacob thought to himself, “If I should call this child Ben-oni, every time that I name him it will put me in mind of the death of my dear wife, and of that affliction, and that will be a continued affliction to me, therefore I will not have my child have that name,” and so the text says that Jacob called his name, “Benjamin, the son of my right hand.”
Now this is to show us this much, that when afflictions befall us we should not give way to having our thoughts continually upon them, but rather upon those things that may stir up our thankfulness to God for mercies. There is a comparison made by Basil, a learned man: It is in this case as with men and women who have sore eyes: now it is not good for them to be always looking into the fire, or at the beams of the sun. “No,” he says, “one who has sore eyes must get things that are suitable to him, and such objects as are fit for one with such weak eyes.”
It is the very same with weak spirits. A man or woman who has a weak spirit must not be looking into the fire of their afflictions, upon those things that deject, that cast them down, but they ought to be looking rather on that which may be suitable for healing and helping them; they should consider those [good] things rather than the other. It will be of very great use and benefit to you, if you lay it to heart, not to be pondering always on afflictions, but on mercies.
2. [Contentment comes when we do not consider “bad interpretations” of God’s ways.]
I beseech you to observe this, though you should forget many of the others: Make a good interpretation of God’s ways towards you. If any good interpretation can be made of God’s ways towards you, make it. You think it much if you have a friend who always makes bad interpretations of your ways towards him; you would take that badly. If you should converse with people with whom you cannot speak a word, but they are ready to make a bad interpretation of it, and to take it in an ill sense, you would think their company very tedious to you. It is very tedious to the Spirit of God when we make such bad interpretations of his ways towards us. When God deals with us otherwise than we would have him do, if one sense worse than another can be put upon it, we will be sure to do it.
Thus, when an affliction befalls you, many good senses may be made of God’s works towards you. You should think thus:
it may be, God intends only to try me by this,
it may be, God saw my heart was too much set on the creature, and so he intends to show me what is in my heart,
it may be, that God saw that if my wealth did continue, I should fall into sin, that the better my position were the worse my soul would be,
it may be, God intended only to exercise some grace,
it may be, God intends to prepare me for some great work which he has for me,
thus you should reason.
But we, on the contrary, make bad interpretations of God’s thus dealing with us, and say, “God does not mean this; surely, the Lord means by this to manifest his wrath and displeasure against me, and this is but a furtherance of further evils that he intends towards me!” Just as they did in the wilderness: “God hath brought us hither to slay us.”
This is the worst interpretation that you can possibly make of God’s ways. Oh, why will you make these worst interpretations, when there may be better? In I Corinthians 13:5, when the Scripture speaks of love, it says, “Love thinketh no evil.” Love is of that nature that if ten interpretations may be made of a thing, nine of them bad and one good, love will take that which is good and leave the other nine. And so, though ten interpretations might be presented to you concerning God’s ways towards you, and if but one is good and nine bad, you should take that one which is good, and leave the other nine.
I beseech you to consider that God does nor deal by you as you deal with him. Should God make the worst interpretation of all your ways towards him, as you do of his towards you, it would be very ill with you. God is pleased to manifest his love thus to us, to make the best interpretations of what we do, and therefore God puts a sense upon the actions of his people that one would think could hardly be. For example, God is pleased to call those perfect who have any uprightness of heart in them, he accounteth them perfect: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Uprightness in God’s sense is perfection. Now, alas, when we look into our own hearts we can scarce see any good at all there, and yet God is pleased to make such an interpretation as to say, It is perfect. When we look into our own hearts, we can see nothing but uncleanness; God calls you his saints, he calls the meanest [lowliest] Christian who has the least grace under the greatest corruption his saint.
3. [Do not be taken up inordinately with the comforts of the world when you have them.]
When you have them, do not take too much satisfaction in them. It is a certain rule: however inordinate any man or woman is in sorrow when a comfort is taken from them, so were they immoderate in their rejoicing in the comfort when they had it. For instance, if you hear ill tidings about your estates, and your hearts are dejected immoderately, and you are in a discontented mood because of such and such a cross, certainly your hearts were immoderately set upon the world. So, likewise, for your reputation, if you hear others report this or that ill of you, and your hearts are dejected because you think you suffer in your name, your hearts were inordinately set upon your name and reputation. Now, therefore, the way for you not to be immoderate in your sorrow for afflictions is not to be immoderate in your love and delights when you have prosperity. These are the principal directions for our help, that we may live quiet and contented lives.
My brethren, to conclude this point, if I were to tell you that I could show you a way never to be in want of anything, I do not doubt but then we should have much flocking to such a sermon, when a man should undertake to manifest to people how they should never be in want any more. But what I have been preaching to you now comes to as much. It countervails this and is in effect all one. Is it not almost all one, never to be in want, or never to be without contentment? That man or woman who is never without a contented spirit, truly can never be said to want much. Oh, the Word holds forth a way full of comfort and peace to the people of God even in this world. You may live happy lives in the midst of all the storms and tempests in the world. There is an ark that you may come into, and no men in the world may live such comfortable, cheerful and contented lives as the saints of God. Oh, that we had learned this lesson.
I have spent many sermons over this lesson of contentment, but I am afraid that you will be longer in learning it than I have been preaching of it. It is a harder thing to learn it than it is to preach or speak of it. I remember I have read of one man reading of that place in the 39th Psalm, “I will take heed that I offend not with my tongue.” He said, “I have been these thirty-eight years learning this lesson and have not learned it thoroughly.” The truth is, there are many, I am afraid, who have been professors near eight and thirty years, who have hardly learned this lesson. It would be a good lesson, for young believers to learn this early. But this lesson of Christian contentment is as hard, and perhaps you may be many years learning it. . . . Here is a necessary lesson for a Christian, that Paul said, he had learned in all states therewith to be content. Oh, do not be content with yourselves till you have learned this lesson of Christian contentment.
Excerpted and edited from Jeremiah Burrough’s The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
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