Real Life~Real Answers: Alone & Lonely

There is an older widow woman in your church who was moved into a nursing home a year ago. Her only family is out of state and they are not able to care for her as she has some health problems that need daily monitoring.  You recently visited this woman and she confides in you how lonely she is there. Her family rarely calls and she is struggling to be content in the nursing home. She secretly wishes her life would just end.

*What could you say to her to encourage her from God’s Word?

*What should this older woman “put on” to live her live in a godly and content way?

Real Life~Real Answers: Learning Contentment

Your teen daughter comes home from the mall where she spent some time with friends. In desperation, she tells you she needs a new pair of jeans. You know she has plenty of good jeans in her closet, so you press her further as to why she thinks she needs a new pair of jeans.  After some time, you find out there is a new style out. All your daughter’s friends have these new jeans and your daughter also wants a pair.

*How can you use this situation to help your daughter determine if she is being content or greedy?

*What are some other practical ways you could model and show contentment in life to be an example to your daughter?

Real Life~Real Answers

Waiting on God

A young lady in your church longs to be married. She feels she has prepared for marriage her whole life thus far and doesn't understand why Prince Charming hasn't entered her life yet. She is becoming bitter at God for not allowing this to happen and is hurting and confused as she tries to make decisions for the future wishing that God would allow her to meet the right man. She confides her feelings to you.

What could you say to her to help her understand God’s will?

How can this young lady learn to be content while she learns God’s will for her life?

How could you pray for her?

Real Life ~ Real Answers

A Christian Hypocrite

Susan (who is saved, attends church faithfully and teaches SS) looks forward to her daughter’s basketball season starting. Her daughter has really improved in her ability to play the game since last year and Susan thinks her daughter will get a lot of playing time this year. The first game day arrives and as Susan anxiously waits for the game to start in the stands she cheers for her daughter during the warm-up time. Finally it’s time to start and as the starting line up is announced, her daughter is not one of the girls who is starting. Susan wonders why and by the time the first 5 minutes of the game has passed she becomes angry. She moves from her spot in the bleachers to sit closer to the coach and begins yelling for him to put her daughter in and goes on and on about how good of a player she is. The coach ignores Susan during game play, but during a time-out takes a minute to ask her kindly if she would not yell at him like that during the game. Susan becomes furious and begins to rant and rave over the fact that her daughter is not playing.

How well is Susan demonstrating what she believes?

What is she showing by her words and actions?

How should Susan respond? What would be a godly response in this situation?

Continuing in Ecclesiastes

Deb Brammer will join us for another five sessions as we continue on with our study of Ecclesiastes. So, as we go on in chapter 6, we ask, "What role does God have in the satisfaction which wealth, possessions and honor can bring?" God gives us the ability to enjoy His creation and contentment and satisfaction comes from Him alone (Job 1:21-22). Do you take time each day to be thankful and praise God for the things He gives you to enjoy? Are you recognizing that all you have comes from Him alone? What a challenge it is to remember that it is God who gives the ability to enjoy all things!

Money Does Not Bring Happiness

Ecclesiastes 5:10-20 talk about the theme of the vanity of wealth and possessions. Verse 10 says that "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money..." What a sobering thought to mediate on. So often we are happy (only for a little while) when we have plenty of money in our checkbook. So our question today is: "Why is money unable to bring happiness or contentment?" When money is what we strive after, we are not living in obedience. This holds true for any other material possession or relationship in life. Matthew 22:27 tells us that we need to love God with our whole heart, not money, things or people. Material possessions will eventually break, be lost, stolen or waste away (Matthew 6:19-21). Money does not last, but God's love does. Obedience, resting in God's love and His promises for us bring true happiness and contentment. Are you striving for your happiness in God or are you striving for money or material possessions to bring you contentment?

Envy vs. Contentment

In Ecclesiastes 4:4, we read about man's envy. Solomon notes that envy is a part of what motivates man to work. Today, we talk about what believers can do to be content rather than envious. Learning contentment is a heart attitude. It is not something that we will naturally be good at. Paul says in Philippians 4:11 that he learned to be content. As believers, we need to understand that:

1. Envy is sin.
2. The outcome of envy is not God-honoring.
3. Believers cannot show true love if they are envious.
4. We need to put on thankfulness and contentment in place of envy.

We share many practical things from Scripture today about how we can choose contentment rather than envy. We challenge you today to reflect on your life. Are you choosing to be thankful for all things, or are you envious about what others have? How does the truth of this passage encourage you?

Discontentment, continued...

We pray that the verses we have shared concerning this topic has helped you to think biblically about contentment. If you missed any of the references we shared, you can download the free study notes from the right of this blog. Use these notes as a guide to help you follow along in our discussion or simply to have the verses and questions we ask about our study. We hope that these notes and this blog are tools that you can use to help you in your quest to know God and His Word more. We mentioned some practical helps to identify areas of discontentment today on the program. Our contentment truly comes from God alone. So ask yourself - do you get upset when you don't get what you want? True contentment comes from a right standing with God. Are you in His Word and is pleasing God your greatest desire? Contentment is a mindset and we must purpose to be content with what we have. When you pray, do you say "I want" or do you pray "if the Lord wills"? These are all tough questions to ask, but we hope that you will ask yourself these questions to see if you are truly being content. Do you have any other practical questions or thoughts we could consider about this topic?