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Some years ago I walked into our living room and saw my wife, Hope, seated on the sofa holding a newly arrived baby, surrounded by the rest of the children.  I remarked to her that she looked like a “picture of contentment.”   And she was content.  I wish I had snapped a picture of this, but you’ll just have to imagine it.

One of the ways we learn contentment is by fulfilling the purpose and design God has given to us, nothing more, nothing less.  This is what Hope was doing, fulfilling God’s design and purpose for her.  She was being a wife and mother.  She was having children and being a keeper at home.  She was putting into practice those things we see in 1 Timothy 5, Titus 2, and Proverbs 31.  This gave to her true contentment, and it continues to this day.

Here are some other ways we can learn to be content. 

Here is a quote from Jeremiah Burroughs on contentment:

Contentment is the inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal in every condition: That is the description, and in it nine distinct things have been opened up which we summarize as follows: First, that contentment is a heart-work within the soul; Secondly, it is the quieting of the heart; Thirdly, it is the frame of the spirit; Fourthly, it is a gracious frame; Fifthly, it is the free working of this gracious frame; Sixthly, there is in it a submission to God, sending the soul under God; Seventhly, there is a taking pleasure in the hand of God; Eighthly, all is traced to God’s disposal; Ninthly, in every condition, however hard it be and however long it continue.

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There is no condition that a godly man or woman can be in, but there is some promise or other in the Scripture to help him in that condition. And that is the way of his contentment, to go to the promises, and get from the promise, that which may supply. This is but a dry business to a carnal heart; but it is the most real thing in the world to a gracious heart: when he finds lack of contentment he repairs to the promise, and the Covenant, and falls to pleading the promises that God has made.

2 Samuel 23:5  Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.
 
[This] is a wonderful statement by David, who did not have the Covenant of Grace revealed as fully as we have. Mark what he says: ‘Although I find not my house so’, that is, so comfortable in every way as I would wish, although it is not so, what has he got to content his spirit? He says, ‘He has made with me an everlasting covenant,’ this is what helps in everything.  

We ought to consider this when we reflect on other covenants that are derived from the covenants God has given to us; covenants such as those for marriage, for the church, and civil governments.  Besides the issues of authority and submission that these covenants give us and to which we should hold, we also can see that the framework of these covenants are designed to help us attain contentment.  We have freedoms within limits; we have roles and responsibilities; we have blessings and consequences.  

Living under biblically based, covenantal constraints can be a true means of developing a contented spirit.

Read more thoughts on contentment here and here.

Here are some thoughts on contentment, from a Mom’s Point of View.