There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
—Ecclesiastes 4:8
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have” (Heb 13:5).
How do we pull that off?
First, by grading the worth of our wants. Slick advertisers try to sucker us into believing that abundant possessions and abundant life are synonymous. They’re not. Jesus said life does not consist in the abundance of possessions (Lk 12:15).
Second, by zeroing in on what we have instead of coveting what we don’t have. An honest inventory of what we have will take our breath away. Here’s a starter kit: food, clothes, shelter, health.
Take it from there: mentally add your personal blessings to that list. You’ll walk away spending more time saying, “Thank you,” than you will saying, “Give me.”
Contentment depends more on the
size of your wants than on the size of your wallet.