Leo tolstoy

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Enjoying the “Enough” Life Part Two

April 10, 2024April 9, 2024 krisshetter

Did you miss part one of Enjoying the Enough Life? Click here!

Enjoyment without God is merely entertainment.
Warren Wiersbe

No one on this great blue planet is without sin. Without sinful desires and thoughts. Without sinful emotions. So, if we seek contentment, or unconditional wholeness solely from within what do we find? Our sinful selves just like I did when I embarked on my happiness journey a few years ago. And we turn back to the unfulfilling emotion of fleeting happiness.

What guides a person to being truly joy-filled or content in every situation? How do we achieve that “unconditional wholeness” researcher Daniel Cordaro mentioned after visiting that Himalayan tribe? It requires something outside us to guide us through the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations of life. It’s easy to enjoy a new car. But what about when it breaks down? It takes no effort to enjoy the birthday party at the park you so expertly planned but what happens when it rains? Does your happiness bucket completely empty and you turn into Attila the Hun, raging at others? Or you weep and sulk feeling the cosmos hates you?

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. ¹²I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³I can do all things through him who strengthens me."  Philippians 4: 11-13

That strength to endure a peasant life that Tolstoy witnessed, a life of labor and toil, a life of disappointments and tragedy, and yes, even a life full of wealth comes only from God. (Ecc 5:19 & 6:2) Through the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in us when we say, “Yes!” to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. It’s the fountain from which we draw on every single moment of every day to guide us and strengthen us. Because my friends, you cannot find wholeness without Him.

Deep-seated in the American mind, for example, is the disastrous idea that we should pursue happiness. But what is happiness? And what are the realities through which one could achieve it? And how, practically speaking, does one pursue happiness? One might pursue happiness on the carpe diem principle. But that can be understood in many ways. It could endorse a sensuality of the present moment or endorse devoting the present moment to improvement of one’s character, to serving others, or to serving God. Usually in our times, however, it is some form of sensuality. Our choice between these options will have profound implications for our efforts to become a genuinely good person and to live harmoniously with reality, with how things really are.
Dallas Willard

My Bible study ladies are currently studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount by Jen Wilkins. In the first week we read and discovered the messages behind the first 12 verses, also known as the Beatitudes. Jesus’ goal in this sermon was to re-define for the disciples what not only the Kingdom of Heaven looks like but what its citizens look like. The first four beatitudes describe the character of its citizens:

We Are Poor in Spirit: accepting we are weak and sinful in need of a strength outside ourselves
We Are Mourners: we recognize our sinfulness and weep over it daily. Asking God for forgiveness for each time we act, speak or think (even feel) in opposition to God’s will for us.
We Are Meek: in modeling Jesus’ submission to the Father in going to the cross for humanity’s sins and therefore suffering a terrible death, we too seek humility and submission to God.
We Are Hungry and Thirsty: not for earthly glory, praise and wealth but for our hearts and minds to be daily cleansed. We constantly seek His will for our life so that we can glorify Him. We cast off our old selves and thirst for the new bodies and New Eden to come.

These citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven? They will be abundant with fruit and content in all situations. The fruits of love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, patience, self-control and faithfulness can be seen by all around them. They spread that fruit and His Word throughout our families, communities and the world. We achieve the ultimate peace in the face of persecution. Peace with God. Our friction between us is gone. We are made whole because He breathes the Holy Spirit into us, making us one with Him.

"And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one…²²The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." John 17: 11 & 22-23

One with the Creator of all things seen and unseen – Elohim, Jehovah. What more could a tiny, sinful human want for all eternity? All other pales in comparison! No self-help book without God can help you achieve such gloriously contented status. King Solomon discovered that our sinful toil without God is usually for our own gain and our appetite is never satisfied on our own (Ecc 6:7).

"The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is none who does good." Psalm 14:1-2

I once saw an interaction with a non-believer and a street preacher. The young, unbelieving woman stated, “How can you say I won’t go to heaven (which as a non-believer why would she care?) when I’m a good person. I’m better than most Christians. I don’t lie, cheat or steal.” Yet, as Jesus reminds us further in the Sermon on the Mount if you even let your heart yearn to do any of those things you are guilty. And I would bet all that I have she has, in fact, actually lied. She has probably stolen something – maybe someone’s dignity by gossiping about them. And cheating? She might have thought that little deed or breaking some municipal law wasn’t that “big of a deal” but it’s still cheating. She is at odds with God, broken and not whole.

It is only through the gift of reconciliation for our sins, no matter their size, of which Jesus Christ paid for, that we can come upright before the God of the Universe. Where we receive mercy and forgiveness so we don’t have to live in shame and hurt, grasping for pleasures to dull our pain. No, instead He brushes us off and clothes us in white garments. He brings us into His family and calls us His sons and daughters. He pours out His love and gives a piece of Him to live in us so we can have that “unconditional wholeness.” He gifts us with “enough” each day so that we may be satisfied.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.⁴And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."  James 1:2-4

We are made perfect and complete, meaning made whole, when we face life’s trials and rely on the God who gives us strength and hope. We are honed and shaped into the image of the only being that walked this earth who was sinless and fully content — Jesus.

Friend, if you want to get off the roller coaster of seeking “happiness” and then being brought low by trials, look to our All Mighty God and His Son. He is our provider, our protector, our armor, our joy, our hope. He has never broken a promise and He never will. He promises you a new life at the end of the rainbow – not a pot of gold. And with that promise and hope we can live a contented, meaningful life of “enough” in a world of chaos.

Enjoying The “Enough” Life

April 8, 2024April 10, 2024 krisshetter

In 2014, researcher and founder of the Contentment Foundation Daniel Cordaro, took a team of researchers to the remote area of the Himalayas in Eastern Bhutan. Their research subjects were a group of 200 nomad families with which no outsider had previously contacted. It was to be the final look into a 5-year, cross-cultural study of how people identify and react to a long list of emotions. Upon showing the villagers dozens of facial and vocal expressions, even having been cut off from the rest of the world, they recognized the vast majority of emotions with accuracy. However, it was one emotion that elicited a different response to the norm. That emotion was contentment. Their guide, Dr. Dorji Wangchuk, stopped for a moment when they reached that word.

“In our culture, this emotion is very special. It is the highest achievement of human well-being, and it is what the greatest enlightened masters have been writing about for thousands for years. It’s hard to translate it exactly, but the closest word is chokkshay, which is a very deep and spiritual word that means ‘the knowledge of enough.’ It basically means that right here, right now, everything is perfect as it is, regardless of what you are experiencing outside.”

This explanation by Dr. Wangchuk brought chills to Cordaro who goes on to say in his story of this experience, “No matter where I went on planet earth, all of the cultures I interacted with revered contentment as one of the highest states to cultivate in life. Yet in the West, we were obsessing about happiness—and feeling more anxious, depressed, and stressed.”*

While Mr. Cardaro may have decided through his research that “happiness” rather than contentment is a relatively new goal which rears its head mainly in western society, I would argue it’s actually been around for a very long time. You only need to turn to Ecclesiastes 6, indeed much of Ecclesiastes itself, to see pleasure seeking or happiness sits atop many people’s motivation in life.

"If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he…even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity.  Do not all go to the same place?"  Ecclesiastes 6:3 & 6

King Solomon would relate to this prosperous man; it might even be a reflection of the King himself. A man who gathered riches, property, wives, children, slaves, food and wine with abandon. Yet was drawn to study the meaningless life. A life much the opposite of those Himalayan nomads.

A 2016 survey by YouGov asked Americans whether they would rather achieve great things or be happy. 81% said they would rather be happy. Despite the universalness of happiness as a goal, it was hard to know how to define it or how to achieve it.** And I ask you, on a daily basis are you seeking happiness or contentment? Are you seeking to feel the emotion that pleasure provides or resting in the peace of enjoying “enough?”

"Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."  Ecclesiastes 6:9

The “I need to do and seek out what makes me happy” hasn’t really worked out that well for us humans. It’s a life led by self-fulfillment and fleeting emotions. Back a few years when I decided to seek happiness, I went about it working hard at changing myself. I needed to be less, I suppose, like me and more like people who appeared happy with loads of friends. The problem was I was still me. I was still filled with sinful thoughts and behaviors, most of which I couldn’t see or didn’t want to.

"You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  James 4:2-3

Through study of God’s Holy Word, I finally had my “ah ha moment.” I was seeking with the wrong motive. What I needed to seek was joy and contentment, not how to be happy. Why? Because desiring happiness didn’t mean to love others, rather just myself. It meant getting what I wanted, not what God wanted of me. It led me to covet and be jealous of those who seemed “happier.”

In the late 1800s, Russian author Leo Tolstoy experienced his own profound revelation when seeking the meaningful life. Born to aristocrats, he had all that wealth could provide. He ran in highly intellectual circles debating the politics and issues of the day. And for all that upper-class privilege he once stated,

My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could consider reasonable… had a fairy come and offered to fulfill my desires I should not have known what to ask.”

In the course of events Tolstoy became involved with a group of Russian peasants. What he witnessed was a hard life. One with heavy, daily labor. And they were content. They, he said, knew the meaning of life and death and labored quietly. They endured deprivations and suffering. They lived and died seeing the good.

So how do we achieve this state of contentment? Must we cast off all our hard earned wealth? Sell our homes and become Himalayan nomads? Become like John the Baptist and wear rough clothing and eat bugs?

Enjoying life is a matter of character, not circumstance.
Booker T. Washington

Like so many lessons gifted by God, the hard won path to contentment is not about our outward appearance. If it were, the successful business person would be doomed. Yet success, from a wealth perspective, is not seen in the Bible as something to be disabused. It is only seen as causing potential difficulty for the believer. It wasn’t the prince’s wealth that caused him not to be able to follow Jesus. But rather his clinging to it for his happiness. (Matt 19:21-22). His character was filled with greed and pride.

In the completed study by Cordaro he found there were two views of what people think makes for a contented life. The first he called the “More Strategy.” It’s that view of the western happiness mindset. More money, more stuff. The problem, he found, was once you got more, that feeling of happiness drifted away like the mist.

The second approach is the “Enough Strategy.” It’s when people look inward to find the happiness. He poured through thousands of years of ancient wisdom traditions and found that the ancients almost never used the word happiness. More than 90 percent of the time, they used the word contentment, and described it as a state of “unconditional wholeness,” regardless of what is happening externally.

The unfortunate diagnosis by Cordaro however, is that somehow we can become whole all by ourselves. It’s the same mindset of modern, secular psychology and 1,000s of self-help books, He didn’t research which ancient wisdom traditions were successful at this goal and how. If he had, he might have discovered Jesus.

Enjoying The Enough Life Part Two now available! Click here.

*Excerpt from Greater Good Magazine, May 27, 2020 What If You Pursue Contentment Rather Than Happiness?

** BBC’s Nat Rutherford