One of the life lessons I saw in vivid display throughout my life was one I learned from my dad. He was always quick to point out, just as his father had pointed out to him, that a person needs to be content and part of finding that wonderful place of contentment is by answering the question, “How much is enough?” I saw him live this principle out especially in times when it seemed that he was being entrusted with more. He met the temptation to possess or keep to himself these additional resources with a phrase I heard him often say, “a person needs to know when they have enough”. When times of extra resources came his way he saw it as his cue to figure where they needed to go because he had “enough”. I watched him fund missionaries in Haiti and India, support the cause of Christ being carried out by Manhattan Christian College, and many other impromptu needs that passed in front of him. All this was done in addition to faithfully supporting the work of the Lord in his own congregation with his time, talent and treasure.
While many of my dad’s peers were building one bigger house after another and taking exotic trips all over the world, dad, with the full support of my mom, dad and mom lived humbly, simply in their 1000 square foot house. They finally did take a few excursions at my brother and my insistence including Dollywood and the Great Smoky Mountains. I got my dad to travel with me for 10 days of ministry work in Haiti, his first time ever on a plane!
I know that this sounds weird and truly a significant reason for my dad’s attitude about all of this centered on 2 life lessons he learned over and over. The first, life is short and we don’t know what is going to happen today, let alone tomorrow. Dad lived through several huge life challenges that shaped so much of what he would later become. As a boy, dad lived through the Great Depression. When he was 19, his dad died suddenly of a heart attack leaving him to fend for his widowed mother. At 29, when things were starting to look up, a 500 year flood came and wiped out livestock, crops and more importantly the opportunity to continue being a farmer/rancher, his life’s ambition.
The second life lesson dad learned over and over was that God is good and that He will provide! God proved His faithfulness over and over to my dad and he was quick to chronicle it. But the residual effect of loss and provision of God left dad where he remained until he died: content with what he had, always mindful that to do otherwise was foolish.
I am still learning these lessons. I am happy to report that as I have chosen to live more simply and humbly, ever mindful of the Lord’s provision in my life, I have discovered something I never could when I was chasing after more: peace.
I hope the retelling of my dad’s story will help you, especially if you are finding it a challenge to find contentment. One lie of our culture is that the more you have, the “better off” you will be. I am finding myself becoming more comfortable depending upon God’s provision than stressing about it and trying to do it myself. It has left me happier, more generous and able to celebrate life when others often seem weary from it. Maybe the secret is to learn the simple yet invaluable lesson of knowing when we have “enough”.
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