Content or complacent

Bienhome Muivah *

It’s one thing to be content; it’s quite another to be complacent. It becomes easy to ignore the promptings of the spirit of God to embrace God’s next assignment. We rationalize and settle into a comfortable disobedience. Gradually our fruit diminishes, our impact wanes, and we are left wondering, “what happened … what’s missing?”

When you struggle with knowing your destiny, and with finding meaning and purpose, these feeling may be the manifestation of disobedience. When God speaks to you and you choose not to obey Him fully, or even ignore what He is saying. He will allow you to experience frustration, emptiness, and despair. But that is one result of not walking in obedience to God. Let’s recall the story of King Saul, it is sobering to see what God does after Saul’s disobedience.

This led God to say, “I regret that I have made Saul King, for he has turned back from following me and has not perform my commandment” (I Samuel 15:11). As the Apostle Paul writes in Acts 13:22, God removed Saul and “raised up David to be their king, of whom He testified and said, I have found a David, the son of Jesse,“a man after my heart, who will doall my will”.

Obviously David and Saul were very different, David has cultivated a tender, responsive heart toward God (“a man after my heart”). At the end of the day David wanted more than anything else to please God and to honor Him.

This story shows that you can never get too big or too important for God to replace you. God is not impressed with your past accomplishments or your stature-especially because He gave you that stature in the first place. When you refuse to obey Him, He will find someone else who will. He will simply turn around and say, “NEXT!”

That doesn’t mean that David never failed. In fact, we know that he failed miserably; he committed adultery and murder (2 Samuel 11-12). His behavior was inexcusable, and God made sure that he paid the consequences. But unlike Saul, who lied when he was confronted by Samuel about his sin and disobedience (1 Samuel 15:13-14), David said only six words when Nathan the prophet confronted him: “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13).

David was crushed by the guilt of his sin and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. So much so that he wrote Psalm 51, the song of his deep remorse and repentance concerning his sin. Look at what he says in Psalm 51: 1-4

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from inequity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

David was called ‘a man after God’s heart’ because he responded to Him… even after he sinned! This gives all of us hope. God is looking for leaders who are not perfect but who respond to Him; leaders who don’t make excuses about their sin or justify patterns of disobedience; leaders whose heart are tender and responsive to the conviction and correction of the Holy Spirit.

Saul was afraid of losing his position as the leader of Israel. But David was afraid of losing the touch of intimacy, and favor of God who had been everything to Him. Honesty, what are you more afraid of? Aint you intrigued by the idea of being a man after God’s heart, like King David. 2 Chronicles 16: 9 says, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward Him”. He is looking for men and women who will obey Him, and when he finds them, He gives them greater and greater assignments.

There is a story of a young woman who pleaded with God to show her how He wished to use her life. She considered becoming a missionary in China, but did not feel God was leading her there. She also wished to marry and start a family. And this led to an important Crossroads, when she fell in love with a handsome young banker in her small town. In many ways he seemed a perfect match for her, but she was troubled by the difference in their spiritual lives.

The young man attempted to win her over. A friend of her later wrote,

He tried to make her see that he admired her religious convictions; he tried to persuade her that they could establish their home and she could go on and believe and do Justas she wanted and she would not have to change in any way… yet she could not get away from this thought, it would be like establishing a home and deciding that the husband would eat in the dining room and she would eat in the parlor each night.

They would both have a good meal, but they would not be dining in fellowship. If in the matter of faith they could not sit at the same table and have fellowship together their relationship would be impossible.If it was the time of her greatest decision … andshe prayed in solitude: “Lord, you have made me the way I am. I love a home, I love security. I love children, and I love him. Yet I feel that marriage under these conditions would draw me away from you. I surrender Lord, even this, and I leave it in your hands. Lead me, Lord, and strengthen me. You have promised to fulfill all my needs. I trust in you”.

God bless the faith of this young woman, and began to use her in significant ways as a leader in her church, influencing young people for Christ. Her work caught the eye of a pastor of a large church and she was hired as the Christian education director in Southern California.

The young woman was totally committed to her savior, and she demonstrated this commitment through her obedience. Her heart was His (God). Joy and a calm assurance and strength emanates from the demeanor of those who obey God. God will honor and reward their obedience. They carry with them a wholesome fear of God because they have seen Him honor their faithful response to what He placed before them to do, this should be our vision and passion too.

Are you becoming comfortable and settle into a routine and rather predictable life. You begin to like the way things are, you lose the sense of destiny. You might begin to think that what you have done in the past and what you are doing now is what God always wants you to do. Let me echo what has been mentioned already. It is one thing to be content, and it’s quite another to be complacent.

Let’s make God the primary focus of our life and live a contented life.

A contended Sunday to all the readers!