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There’s a fine line between contentment and complacency, and discerning where the balance between them lies could mean all the difference in both your personal life and the world around you. At first glance, finding contentment in your life’s circumstances seems a no-brainer. Of course it’s a good thing. It may very well be one of the secrets to happiness. After all, as singer Sheryl Crow so eloquently put it, “It’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you got.” Sounds like sage advice for a world obsessed with more: more profit, more pleasure, and more power.
But what happens when your seeming contentment with life sinks into mere complacency, thinly veiled by a mantra of happiness, or even worse, what are the consequences when that complacency is motivated by fear, a fear of losing what you already have?
In the parable of the talents, Jesus says, “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man . . . So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! . . . Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him’” (Matthew 25: 24 – 29 [NIV]).
The servant with one talent was scared of his master, and his fear led to his complacency, but how often do we make the same choice? Maintaining the status quo certainly feels safe. When our condition remains the same, we know exactly what to expect, and we know exactly what our lives will be. There is no risk and therefore, there is no loss. But how can we reconcile our desire for safety, with a religion that asks us to risk everything, even our lives, for our faith?
Staying in the fields with your sheep would be safe, but standing against a giant takes faith. Staying in the boat, huddling with your friends would be safe, but stepping onto the water requires faith. Staying in your home, working as a carpenter would have been safe, but instead, Jesus died on a cross to ransom humanity in the act of ultimate faith.
For those who have chosen to follow the example of Christ, there is nothing about this life that should be safe. There is nothing about this world that we should be content with. We should never accept a world that is immersed in violence, indifferent to suffering, and ignorant of morality. Instead we are called by Christ to change the world, even if we lose everything in the process.
“Then [Jesus] said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self” (Luke 9: 23 – 25 [NIV])?
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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