Finding Christian Contentment
by Michael Doyle

Rejoice in and readily show your love,
Following the ways of our God above.
Always seeking after our good contentment
While doing our best to reach for improvement.

Whatever your situation and circumstance,
We can defeat the discomfort of our happenstance.
It is in our hearts played inside your minds
That we gain our sense of what needs to be left behind.

Discontentment has no pluses or useful employment
In finding our way to achieving good enjoyment.
The contentious heart finds its own hostility
With people with whom we have no true enmity.

This is not meant to be something easy,
Nor does thinking this, in any way, please me,
Nor other Christians in striving for improvement.
But it is to say we all must find true contentment.

It is by our own hard worked for preferences
That it comes as our Christian duty, honor, and excellence.
It is the undervalued grace of our true refinement,
That comes in our five-step program toward contentment.

Life comes at us hard in its full complexity,
And we all experience those times of anxiety.
Troubles catch us without a trace of sympathy,
And so, in contentment, we approach life with empathy.

Swan songs aside, God will allow for the doubt
That contentment comes from within, not without.
Affairs of finance, rob us without deceit,
Is it truly better to give in at life's receipt?

All that we have is from God's rich abundance.
That which is given us is from providence.
Both sides of the street have understood
That life has given all of us both bad and good.

In life, where we need to learn God dependency,
We have become a world demanding self-sufficiency.
Everything can and must be done by God's strength.
This is as true as our day have their full length.

There is no gospel of those demanding prosperity.
That has no legitimate place in Christian Orthodoxy.
Our failures show our God's best success
As He makes us strong enough to pass life's test.

True contentment is found in facing life's adversity,
Not in some magical formula of prosperity.
This is a certain need for our very real detachment
If we are to find our way to Christian contentment.

Our peace if found in striving for the divine unity
Of our Savior Jesus in His blessed divinity.
In knowing Jesus, we find our way to make it through.
There is really nothing further for us to do. 

Our contentment is found in the deepening relationship
That serves as the basis of all true forms of worship.
This is the essence of all that's found to be true,
His salvation and love exists for the likes of me and you.

Whatever we come to face must be faced with gratitude.
This is the only right and reverential attitude.
Our highest ambition is to follow God in every and all
Things that come our way as we respond to His holy call.

We are as simple clay in the Potter's majestic hand,
As we walk our live as best that we understand.
God provides us and guides us in our possibility
To live life in grace and with our humility. 

(c) August 10, 2025   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved