What do you think is harder, contentment as a poor person or as a rich person? It probably depends on who you ask. But it really is rare to find someone like the apostle Paul who says:
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I 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. ~ Philippians 4:11-12
Instead, we find either the discontented poor or rich. Reporter/Writer Ezra Klein, in an article for the Washington Post entitled, "Why the Rich Want to Get Richer," states:
Study after study shows that people would prefer a medium-sized house in a neighborhood of small houses to a big house in a neighborhood of much bigger houses. What people really want isn't to have a big house, in other words, but to have a bigger house than their peers.
I believe he is right. The joy of living in a enormous house comes in the boasting over others. A mansion without the boasting is nothing more than a bunch of fancy, organized wood and bricks. But this is the root of the problem of discontentment. Our homes and cars and money and marital status and children's choices are not the problem. Our hearts are the problem. And lest we think this is a problem for non-Christians, we can turn to this study by Boston College on wealth and satisfaction. In reflecting on this research, Atlantic magazine comments:
The respondents turn out to be a generally dissatisfied lot, whose money has contributed to deep anxieties involving love, work, and family. Indeed, they are frequently dissatisfied even with their sizable fortunes. Most of them still do not consider themselves financially secure; for that, they say, they would require on average one-quarter more wealth than they currently possess. (Remember: this is a population with assets in the tens of millions of dollars and above.) One respondent, the heir to an enormous fortune, says that what matters most to him is his Christianity, and that his greatest aspiration is “to love the Lord, my family, and my friends.” He also reports that he wouldn’t feel financially secure until he had $1 billion in the bank.
I guess this man closes his eyes when he reads Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." After all, who can feel secure without $1 billion in the bank?
Regardless of one's church attendance or wealth, contentment is one precious resource that surely is otherworldly.
Regardless of one's church attendance or wealth, contentment is one precious resource that surely is otherworldly.