Contentment Is Finding Christ to Be The Treasure
by Dan Flynn
Dan serves as an elder at Pennington Park Church
John D. Rockefeller, the richest man of his era, was once asked, “How much money do you need to be content?” His response: “Just a little more.” The human heart is a sponge, with an insatiable thirst for “just a little more.” Or, perhaps we’re more like a shipwrecked man adrift at sea … longing to quench our thirst. What do we do? Gulp salt water, which only make us thirstier.
We thirst, we want, we desire, we crave. Contentment feels forever beyond our reach. Augustine said, “God has made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in Him.” Is your heart restless? Is contentment quarantined at someone else’s house? Where can you find it this Christmas?
First, let’s admit that not all longings for more are wrong. Does the mother of a sick infant error by longing for her child’s health? No. Does the child of arguing parents err by longing for their reconciliation? No. All longings for our broken world to be mended are yearnings for the Not-Yet-Kingdom to come.
However, some of our desires are not benign, but betray an embedded virus within. We search for quick-fix remedies to soothe our discontent … failing to notice, again and again, these counterfeit products over-promise but under-deliver.
Contentment lies in recognizing we were made to find satisfaction in Jesus alone. The world is broken and we froth about, searching in vain for panaceas to our problems. But only One exists. Pascal said (attributed): “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, that cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
This advent, as we wait for His coming, we would do well to ponder anew the Treasure we have in Jesus. Perhaps you can set your musings to music, a drawing, or a poem? Each Christmas I write a poem, as a gift for Jesus (it is His Birthday, after all). Below is a past effort, reminding myself that He is my great Treasure – and therefore, my great Contentment. May we find in Christ all we’ve ever wanted … and more.
The Christmas Treasure in the Field
“The Kingdom of God is like Treasure hidden in a Field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that Field.” (Matthew 14:33)
¹How do you start an anthem,
Simple poem for a King,
When every word is borrowed
From the One who made all things?
²For like a child who buys a gift
For Dad and Mommy-dear,
He spends his Parents’ money
On their present, it’s quite clear.
³And so this year, I contemplate
The words that fill my mind,
And offer back to Him who gives
Them Rhythm and their Rhyme.
⁴In days long past, the Savior told
The story of a man,
Who plodded through a pasture
Trudging by, without a plan.
⁵When the Pilgrim caught a sparkle
Of a gem that gleamed aground,
He stopped to re-examine
What on earth his eyes had found.
⁶And bending to the glimmer,
Half-buried in the Field,
The glint of shiny brill’ance
Seized his notice, and he kneeled.
⁷The glitter was a foretaste
of a Treasure trove of wealth,
Cracking wide the coffer’s cover —
Instant economic health!
⁸Reburying the strongbox,
Hurtling home in quite a rush,
Adding up his varied assets,
Liquidating stocks and trusts.
⁹Then running to the Realtor,
He paid the “asking price,”
Costing everything he’d treasured,
To purchase Paradise.
¹⁰Bounding back, the gleeful owner,
Of the field, and all within,
Unearthed the box of Treasure,
To examine it again.
¹¹Within the wooden carton,
Lay the Treasure of the earth;
He hugged his prized possession
Like he’d had a second birth.
¹² ‘Twas better than he’d hoped for,
Everything inside the chest,
That his heart had ever longed for,
As he gazed upon God’s Best.
¹³And now my friendly reader,
Why did Jesus tell this lore,
Of a man who found a treasure,
Selling all, to own much more?
¹⁴It’s because the box discovered
In the field contained a thing,
That’s more valuable than silver,
gold or diamonds, bogus ‘bling.’
¹⁵The chest contained a treasure
Of a Person — who’s the Prize —
Nestled warmly in the manger,
Baby King, in bright disguise.
¹⁶Yes, Jesus is the Treasure
In the Field we each walk through,
And I wonder if you see it,
And I’m hoping that you do.
¹⁷The jewel unearthed in Bethlehem,
Within the manger lay,
He is the Only Treasure,
Will you sell your all, today?
