Coveting and Contentment
The tenth commandment, found in Exodus 20:17, declares:
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
At first glance, this seems like a straightforward prohibition against envy. But there is much more going on here. Sure, a life of envy is forbidden in the Scriptures. Yes, and amen! But what is commanded here instead of that? What must I replace my envy-loving heart with that would be honoring to God? If I were to think about the polar opposite of envy, what would my life look like if I did that thing?
Considering the matter this way, I would arrive near a life of gratitude, trust, and joy in God's provision. Biblically speaking, this kind of behavior has a title, and it is called contentment. Thus, more than communicating a mere prohibition, the tenth commandment also puts forward a helpful prescription that the Bible calls contentment, which I am to be doing instead of spending my time consumed with toxic envy. But how do I do that?
The Secret of Contentment
Contentment is elusive, even for the most faithful believers. The Apostle Paul, nearing the end of his life, revealed in Philippians 4:11-12:
"I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am... I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need."
Paul describes contentment as a "secret" because it is not natural or intuitive to the human mind, heart, or will. It is elusive and cannot be learned without disciplined faith and faithful discipline. Contentment does not depend on wealth, status, or circumstances but on recognizing the blessings God has already provided are all that I need. I do not need more money; what God has given me is enough. I do not need that new pickup truck my neighbor bought; my rusted-out Honda Civic is enough. Contentment is about resisting the temptation to play the "comparison game" and refusing to define my satisfaction by any measure other than Christ. My happiness is not tied to the material possessions or circumstances I have received, my pleasure and joy are bound up in a person, the triune God, who is sovereign, who has good plans for me, and has omnisciently given me all I have and precisely all I need. There is not a single atom on God's green earth that God forgot to give me. And because I have everything He has entrusted to me, every situation, diagnosis, relationship, and dollar that He intended on me having, I currently have, which means I can rejoice in His kindness and thank Him for His provision.
In The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs offers (in my humble opinion) the most outstanding treatment on contentment outside the Scriptures. While this is far from a quote from his work, here is a quick little paraphrase from my memory of the book:
"If every moment of your life was marked by suffering—if you were born into a family that did not want you, if you were raised by people that hated you if every dog you ever called a friend got ran over by a drunk driver if you developed a rare and excruciatingly painful disease if every breath you took sent searing pain through your whole body, and you lived in the most bitter physical, emotional, and psychological pain for a lifetime, and yet you knew Christ, then you can say without any hesitancy that God has been better to you than you deserve. "- My Paraphrase of The Rare Jewell of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs.
If that were your life, and you are a Christian, then you must know that God is being kinder to you than your sins deserve (Genesis 50:20). You deserve hell, O man! Yet, because of His amazing grace, the only hell you will ever face is a lifetime of 80 years. And even in that, your suffering is not meaningless; God is causing all things to work together for your good (Romans 8:28). He is using your light and momentary afflictions—light and momentary in comparison to an eternal hell—to produce an eternal weight of glory that will be yours in Christ for all eternity (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
God uses your trials, your scars, your tears, and your pain to perfect you, making you mature and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).
You may be hurting today, but if you know Christ, remember that your suffering is infinitely less than your sins have earned. And remember that God promises to use your suffering for your good and His glory. In light of this, we have no right to complain but every reason to be grateful, thankful, and full of worship.
The Problem with Complaints
Given what we have earned in our sinfulness and acknowledging that God alone is sovereign, discontentment, grumbling, complaining, and whining reveal far more about our view of God than our opinion on the situation. To complain is to claim that a problem is unfair. By doing so, we implicitly accuse God of unfairness in His sovereign distribution of circumstances. And to accuse God of being unfair is to question His goodness, which is essentially to declare, "I do not believe You are God."
This is because God must be perfectly good if He is truly God. Complaining, therefore, becomes an accusation against His divine character. It adopts a subtle but devastating form of "accidental atheism," cloaked in what might seem like a mild, harmless quibble. Knowing these implications, we must see complaining for what it truly is: venomous poison. It has no place in the hearts or on the lips of Christians.
In addition to its theological weight, consider how quickly complaining becomes habitual. A person who begins with minor frustrations—traffic delays, slow service, unmet expectations—can soon find themselves entrenched in a spirit of bitterness. Sin loves to multiply, and complaining is prolific, like rabbits. Left unchecked, it takes a soft, tender heart and hardens it before the week is out. Bitter and grumbling attitudes must be forcibly uprooted before they take root and choke out the fruit of the Spirit.
What is the remedy? Gratitude. Instead of complaining, practice intentional thanksgiving. Instead of griping about what you don't have, worship God for what you do have. Get creative in your gratitude—find even the smallest and most diverse reasons to thank Him. The more we deliberately and consistently thank God, the more our hardened hearts will soften, and the closer we will come to learning the secret of contentment.
