Sense vs. Cents

Well my wife and I are creeping up on the 34th week of pregnancy!! Hopefull little Payton will stay in there and "cook" a little while longer. We do have the bag packed and all routes to the hospitals have been mapped out! Both Jes and I are extremely excited to meet this little girl. It will be an amazing change and addition to our lives. Throughout our pregnancy I have spent some time reflecting back on my last 5 or 6 years and have realized what exactly the Lord has done in my life. For those of you that have known me for that long can attest to the Lord's work with me. God has blessed me with great sense of contentment and stabilty. Two things I was never able to realize without Him and His guidance.

Philippians 4:11-13
11I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

I think as men we naturally can get caught up in the life of “keeping up with the Jones’s”. Heck society practically promotes us to. The most popular shows on TV are reality shows that advertise what the affluent have. It can only make one desire to be like them or have what they have. I mean seriously most of us actually get caught up in what pro athletes drive or what they have in their homes more so than their performance on their fields. I lead the list of men I know who got caught up in this rat race way of thinking. About 5 years ago when I lived in Oregon I owned a business, belonged to a country club, and would party, and travel, wherever and whenever I wanted. Quite frankly I didn’t have the money for any of that but you wouldn’t know it by my actions. I had no respect for what God had blessed me with at the time. The one thing that God didn’t bless me with during my time of complete foolishness was a sense of stability and contentment. I would spend all morning painting myself up in this mask so no one would recognize what I was hiding. Out of fear I hid it from my parents and from my closest friends around me. Fortunately for me it was during this time of masking that God allowed me to hang around a few strong Christian people. During this time with them I noticed the one thing I could see they all had was this wonderful sense of calmness and contentment. Rich or poor they were stable and content. I was a spiraling train wreck and couldn’t figure out why. One thing was for sure, I was getting to a point where I was willing to trade what I had for just a small slice of stability and contentment.
Over the course of two years God blessed me with losing my business, practically going broke, and one by one he kept taking possessions away. At that point I started to listen to Him out of fear, and boy did he speak clearly. I followed His lead back to Arizona where He turned everything around. He introduced me to a youth pastor and great friend named Bradley, who for the most part, taught me how learn about Christ and to how to follow His lead. He blessed with a great job and then, once He knew I could handle it, introduced me to my beautiful wife, and has since blessed us with a child to be. All along the way He has continued to bless me with all that I need.
I know that my wife and soon to be child are the two greatest blessings I have been entrusted with, but quite frankly I am almost as thankful that he did whoop my butt a few years ago and “blessed” me with those hard times. Those hard times prepared me for where I am now. I can say that I have never felt more stable or content in my short time here on earth. I know that we go through different seasons, and who knows which one we are headed for. But I do know this, He will get us through, He will provide what we need, and most of all He will love and forgive us. We can do all things through Him, because He gives us the strength, and I pray that we can be content in all situations. And I hope that we can learn that a sense of contentment is worth a heck of a lot more than any amount of cents you can have in a bank.