INTRODUCTION to the series:
Several months ago – long before the Covid19 pandemic became the global focus of our lives – I surveyed newsletter recipients what topics they’d like to see me reflect on in my blogs. The answer (surprisingly to me) came back wanting to hear my reflections on life at age 66, now in my 50th year of following Jesus.
I started laying out a writing plan with topics and stories of lessons-learned… and then coronavirus changed life for all of us. In April, our team at DAI produced a month of devotional reflections built around our response to the pandemic. I was privileged to contribute a dozen of these reflections. Because my “blog” list and our DAI newsletter list has such little overlap, we decided I would run these again – starting Monday May 4th and appearing as a “reflection for the week” for the next twelve weeks.
My prayer is twofold – first, that these reflections will be an encouragement to your faith and second, that at some point over these twelve weeks they become irrelevant to Covid19 because a vaccination/cure will be discovered, and we will be on the road to recovery.
If you’d like to catch up on past reflections from this series you can do so here:
Three Words for Daily Living: Don’t Be Afraid
Contentment in Lockdown
Paul writes from imprisonment, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13, NIV)
With all the ongoing variations regarding global lockdowns issued by governments and states in hopes of diminishing the spread of the coronavirus, many of us are experiencing (or have recently emerged from experiencing) limits to our freedoms: traveling, socializing, even worshipping together. If we define “prison” as ‘any circumstance we would change if we could, but we can’t, we’re getting a small hint of what prison must be like.
In addition to these limits, many of us are concerned about issues related to finances – whether we’re referring to unemployment or personal savings or a global recession. As we’ve all been discussing over the past weeks, there are many reasons to be fearful about our current situation and our global future.
From a real imprisonment situation and amid economic scarcity, Paul writes that he has learned to be content. If we read the rest of Philippians, we discover Paul is not only content, he is joy-filled – the words “joy” or “rejoice” appear 14 times in this 4-chapter book.
Three take-aways from Paul’s message to us. First, Paul believed that God is in control– more on this next week. Paul rejoiced that the Gospel was going forward, even because of his chains (see Philippians 1:12-18). Second, Paul articulates that he had learned contentment – which reminds us that growth-through-suffering is a process. And third, Paul saw contentment as a result of reliance on Jesus: I can do all things – I can even choose contentment in the face of my limited circumstances and financial challenges – through Christ who strengthens me. May we do the same.
Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for being the source of our contentment in times of isolation and scarcity as well as times of joy and abundance. Like Paul, let us be students of suffering and come out of this experience wiser, more patient and more dependent on you. Please direct our attention away from ourselves and towards those who are not able to endure this “imprisonment” as well as we are, whether due to having “essential” jobs, challenging family dynamics, or greater financial instability. Amen.
Paul & Christie Borthwick serve with Development Associates International. If you are interested in learning more about DAI:
- Visit www.daintl.org
- Click on “get email updates” (https://daintl.org/get-involved/)
