Knowing when and how to stop …

If you’re like just about everyone else on the planet, you’ve had more than one occasion when you failed to stop yourself at a point or time when you should have. Instead, you continued to indulge yourself, but to your detriment.

The Bible warns us about knowing when to “stop” …

“Do you like honey? Don’t eat too much, or it will make you sick! Don’t visit your neighbors too often, or you will wear out your welcome,” Proverbs 25:16-17.

Instead of eating to satiety, we belly up to the buffet for another round … or two.

When we enjoy someone, we can take advantage of the fellowship they extend and, as a result, lose a friend.

We aren’t very good at knowing when to stop because most of us are fairly undisciplined about being content. We live in a world where “enough” is never enough; such faulty thinking fosters a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. We learn to practice discontentment not only with our circumstances, but with ourselves and/or others as well.

It’s true — it doesn’t take anyone else for us to be discontented, we can find dissatisfaction even in ourselves.

That reminds me of a story about a man who was marooned on a desolate island. After he had been there for five years he was found and rescued. As he climbed into the rescue boat the curious rescuers noticed three grass huts.

“We thought you were alone, why are there three huts?” they asked.

The man replied, “The first hut is my home; the second is my church.”

“What about the third hut?”

“Oh, that’s the church I used to belong to!”

We only learn when to “stop” when and where we should by learning how to be content. But if the world’s standard is “enough” is never enough, how do we come to a place where we have the thinking, values, and self-discipline that lead us to say with sincerity, “I’m content”?

The apostle Paul offers us an answer …

“Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content,” 1 Timothy 6:6-8.

Worldly values never bring us to a state of contentment, but godliness with contentment is, itself, a great wealth. That’s because godliness comes from transformation of our minds by God, a changing of our thinking by Him (Romans 12:2) so that we can have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Because of that, we see and value people and things differently; godliness gives us the understanding to know “this is enough” and “here is the place to stop” … if only we apply it!

Godliness fosters contentment because when you have Jesus Christ, you have enough! Look at how Paul describes what we have in Christ:

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ,” Ephesians 1:3.

Right thinking from transformed minds reveals there’s nothing more to be wanted or to be had, and so the pangs of wanting more can be satiated.

Can be.

But sometimes we even practice our discontent with God …

Two friends met each other on the street one day. One looked forlorn, almost on the verge of tears. His friend asked, “What has the world done to you, my old friend?” The sad fellow said, “Let me tell you: three weeks ago, my uncle died and left me forty thousand dollars.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“But you see, two weeks ago, a cousin I never even knew died and left me eighty-five thousand dollars, free and clear.”

“Sounds to me that you’ve been very blessed.”

“You don’t understand!” he interrupted. “Last week my great-aunt passed away. I inherited almost a quarter of a million from her.”

Now the man’s friend was really confused. “Then, why do you look so glum?”

“This week — nothing!”

We can come to the point where we expect to get certain blessings that God never promised us, and when they do not come, it is easy to become discontent. Instead of letting our minds go astray in such fashion, we need to be focused on what we already have in Christ. When we forget what we already have, we become dissatisfied and seek for more, like this story told by Michael Green …

“William Randolph Hearst was a very wealthy newspaper publisher who had an incredible collection of art. The Hearst mansion in northern California is a testament to his insatiable desire for artistic treasures. On one occasion he learned of some artwork he was determined to obtain. He sent his agent abroad to search for the treasure. After months of investigating, the agent reported that the treasure had been found. To further sweeten the find, Hearst learned that the relic wouldn’t cost him a dime. He already owned it. The rediscovered piece was in Hearst’s warehouse with many other treasures that had likewise never been uncrated.”

When we take our focus off what we already have, we can yearn for something more.

God “… has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ …” and has transformed our minds so that we can think like Christ rather than be conformed to the perpetually dissatisfied ways of the world. With such godliness you are capable of being content, the only question that remains is this: Are you?

Scotty