I hate to admit it, but I struggle not to idolise time. I hate ‘wasting time.’ I grew up making to-do lists and carefully planning my days towards maximum efficiency – even in primary school! Contentment at the end of a day came to me if my to do list had been completed, if I had achieved something that I perceived significant.
God definitely has been working on that area of life since I first came to know His love 17 years ago. However, motherhood and life in Africa has challenged me again to know contentment apart from my daily accomplishments.
In the camp, instead of rejoicing that I finally got water to the boil after one hour of fanning the coals of my charcoal stove, I would let the agitation of inefficiency affect my peace-of-mind for hours.
Many curious people would come to frequently greet us at the gate, sometimes with requests and sometimes just to sit and fellowship. Don’t you have things to do? and, Can’t you see that I have things to do? I would think to myself whilst on the surface trying to sit and be ok with not doing anything. I even made rest a chore and got frustrated when I hadn’t completed my ‘quiet time’ for the day.
I knew that the bible spoke of a godliness with contentment that is of great gain1. I needed to unearth this treasure of contentment in order to thrive as a Mum in the dust of a Refugee Camp.
Here’s what I have discovered:
Contentment is not found in our skills and talents
On our arrival to the Refugee Camp in May 2016, my role was mainly mum, wife and homemaker.
Our first home was temporary (a tent!) and we were in it for longer than anticipated. I was no longer the busy doctor or reliable friend but the new mum on the block who had to learn how to do basic life activities again.
I looked pretty clumsy working it all out. From cooking on charcoal, to language learning to shopping at the market – it was all foreign. Time was spent just transferring water from bucket to bucket for showers and dishes and laundry. I was much less efficient at the most basic tasks than the other mothers around me. I got to the end of each day tired, with only a few small jobs completed and stuttered conversations with my new neighbours.
In that season I learnt true contentment is not found just doing the things we are good at.
True contentment comes when we lay our strengths and weaknesses before God and trust Him with how He chooses to use these for his purposes.
Sometimes He makes us weak so others can help us. Sometimes He makes us strong so we can help them. Either way we can find this treasure of contentment by entrusting everything – strengths and weaknesses – in every season, to Him.
Contentment is not found in how much we help people or fix things.
In a refugee Camp of around 54 000 people, where most people are extremely poor, it was easy to become overwhelmed with the enormity of the crisis. No matter how much work I did there would always be more to do and more needs at the gate. Especially when I was also trying to juggle my daily mothering duties. I had to release my need to fix all the sickness, sadness, brokenness and conflict.
I needed to surrender to the fact that not only could I not fix everything, but I also needed help. My neighbours taught me their language and invited me to partake in their precious community life. They were friends to me. They helped me when I was sick. They cared for my child. They occasionally even fed our family out of their rations.
Our family needed help from the poorest of the poor.
This humble position led to opportunities to give love and share life in deeply meaningful ways. I had to learn to be content to leave some things unfixed. The treasure of contentment was unearthed not from ticking things off the to-do list, but from being present in each day, attentive to the Holy Spirit and living in a way that was interruptible and open to the community who were at our doorstep.
Contentment is not found in our own righteousness.
‘My love is so little,’ I would often think as I wanted my own family space or (confession…) didn’t want to share my food or water with all of the frequent visitors.
I would get mad at the hordes of children poking Mr Brave, or stressed by the stranger who came to my front door to greet me when I was trying to do chores.
This would all plague me. ‘Why did I come all the way here, if I am so weak and my love is so little?’ I needed a love and righteousness not my own. Philipians 3:7-11 was a regularly visited scripture as I wrestled for contentment that could withstand the stresses of life as Mum in the dust of a Refugee Camp.
After Paul lists everything that he used to trust in for contentment and right standing before God, he says:
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ[b]—the righteousness from God based on faith.10 My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.2
Contentment comes when we realise that our own human love and righteousness will never be enough.
This treasure of godly contentment is unearthed when we find our identity in Christ alone and His finished work on the Cross. Life and peace flow from this revelation of who we are in Him.
Just as the dust of a Refugee Camp was the trying ground that further unearthed my idolatry of time, need to achieve and lack of true contentment, I am sure there are trying grounds in your life as well. My prayer is that you and I together will continue on the journey together to true contentment. Regardless of the external realities I believe we can take hold of this treasure. It is of great worth.
Love Hope
Appendix
1. 1 Timothy 6:6
2. Philipians 3:7-11 (HCSB)
Hallelujah in the Mountains 