Discontentment can be good.

I think we all have faced discontentment in our life. Whether it is discontentment about the things we have, things we do, or just who we are. Someone else has a better job than you. Someone else is doing so well in school and you’ve failed yet another class. Someone else has a kind of friends group that you would want. You name it.

I have fought discontentment for a long time. And have come to realization that it isn’t always bad. It’s sometimes okay to not be satisfied with where you are.

What? You can’t be serious, Milyena. What about being happy with what you have and where you are?

It’s true that we ought to be content and fight for joy, reminding ourselves that where God placed us is where we need to be. Let me elaborate.

You meet someone who works in the same field you do. They are advanced in it, they are knowledgeable, proficient, and it looks like the job itself goes so much easier for them. You look at them and think, “I am not where this person is with my work and I want to be.” You start working more diligently, you learn various aspects of the job and you become a better professional.

You know someone in church who are the best kind of person. They love the Lord and are in the Word. They serve diligently and wholeheartedly. They truly love the people around them and create lasting friendships with others. You look at them and think, “I am not like that, but I want to be.” You start imitating them, striving to be a person who is as loving toward others. You start spending more time in the Word and with that person searching for what is it that makes this person so great. You want to be like them so you put effort to get there.

You read the Scripture and a passage pierces your heart. It describes something you have struggled for a while, but, if you are honest with yourself, you got used to it. You got used to failing and fighting your own self seems frightening because any change is. You are afraid you will fail so what’s the point of trying? And yet, you want out. You want to grow spiritually and know how to beat this in your life. You start searching for answers because where you are now is not good enough. You need it to get better. You take the necessary steps, get counseling, and do all that you can to work out your salvation.

I have learned that discontentment can serve as a motivator to put more effort into something than before. It can be a reminder that “good enough” is not always good enough. It can be better. I can be better.

I heard someone saying that while God accepts us the way we are, he never leaves us the way we are. So if there is someone or something that makes us feel dissatisfied with ourselves, maybe it’s a good thing. I think that if we are discontent about the good things, the heavenly things, it is not something to fight. If it makes us Christians who are always striving for holiness and perfecting everything we do, why not embrace it and do what is necessary to become those people?

We can trust that God redeems our discontentment and can use it for our good. My prayer is that he does so in me, first and foremost, and in you.

“I am with you always”. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

When I was 16, I thought that by the time I am 25, my life will be a settled one. I’ll get a degree, work (hopefully part-time), be married and have a kid (that’s why “part-time”), serve in ministry, and not worry about the next day because I will know what it will bring. In my dreams life was supposed to be simple and set. Predictable. Stable.

However, for the good part of it, my life doesn’t really look like what I imagined it to be. It’s not completely predictable. It feels like the winds of change and challenge can blow my way any minute and I will have no choice but to submit to them. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know where I will be led and taken next year and what decisions I will have to make.

(Maybe you can relate?)

Although it’s not what I imagined it to be, I would dare to say it’s better. God made sure I would grow, taste his goodness, experience his mercy and grace poured on me, and face the new day with assurance of his guidance and love. So when I confront my future, that is what my God shows me. He is already there.

In the midst of the storm of uncertainty, comes gentle wave of God’s promise – “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6)

My future may feel insecure, but my God secures me. He tells me, “…I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

He may lead me somewhere I do not imagine of going, but he comforts me, “‘My presence will go with you and I will give you rest'” (Exodus 33:!4)

But guess what, God doesn’t only promise his presence and guidance, he also performs a miracle of changing one’s mindset and expectations.

Over time, with prayer, searching and wondering, I have been learning couple of things:

1. Uncertainty does not have to bring fear and worry. Leaving the planning of my future to the Lord gives a sense of rest. I don’t have to fuss up about what’s to come, how to make it happen when my God already took care of that. I can rest and face every morning with the comfort of knowing he’s got it.
2. “Uncertainty” can match up to “possibility”. Instead of letting fear dominate, I am learning to turn my heart to excitement over what freedom God has for me to choose what to do with my life. I heard once that as long as you stay within God’s will of salvation and sanctification, as long as you are in the Word and prayer, you have the freedom to do whatever you want with your life. Do you want to you go to school? Then go. Do you want to try out for that promotion? Do it. Do you want to become a missionary overseas? It’s a noble calling, pursue it. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). If your first and foremost delight is in the Lord, then he is sure and faithful to mend your heart in a way that your desires align with his.

Maybe you are in the same spot as I am. Maybe you have envisioned your life in a different way. I encourage you, friend, to sit down and reflect on the ways God has led you until today, and to turn to his promise of love, care, and guidance as you consider your tomorrow. Sit down, list your worries, and battle them with his promises. I pray that God shows you that uncertain future doesn’t have to bring fear. I pray that God gives you rest and joy in this period of your life.

“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

Isaiah 54:10

This Christmas I ask for a broken heart

I come into the elevator and skim the people around me – two men and a woman, who are somewhat between their 60s and 70s.  After passing couple of floors down, the door opens and a younger woman comes in. “Are you going down?” she asks. One of the men answers, “Oh yes, we are. Well, we can’t go up yet… to heaven, I mean. Not that I am not going there anyway; not after what I did in Vietnam.” 

The silence that follows his words feels heavy. We arrive downstairs and say our “have a good day”s to one another. Walking away from the building, I can’t shake the feeling that there was so much more behind those couple of sentences. There was such hopelessness in his words… 

“Did you get used to your own hope?”

What? Where did that come from? I am just here thinking about someone who is most likely living his life in fear of death and where he will be after, and how comforting it is to have our own hope as Christians…

“Did you get used to it?”

…did I?

When you grow up in church and a family of believers, your whole life revolves around listening and reading of God’s faithfulness, goodness, how his love never fails, and how the Gospel changes everything for us. It is, in fact, so easy to get used to the good things and dismiss them as something usual and even mundane.

Because it’s Advent season, (obviously) my mind goes into “Christmas mode”. Christmas is one of those seasons in life that happen regularly and eventually become usual. So I find myself getting lost in excitement for lights, tinsel, cheer, Christmas songs, the story of God’s hope for the humanity, how he sent his Son to be born for our salvation… as I said, you get used to the good things.

When I hear “Christ and the Gospel are the true reasons for joy”, my mind understands it, but my heart isn’t always pierced with truth like it used to in my early years of walking with God. As much as I feel bad for that man who had no hope, it is even more devastating, when I, who tasted that God is good, can find Him and his gifts mundane.

I love how John Piper puts it in his Advent devotional – “The Dawning of Indestructible Joy”:

“That is my prayer for you this Christmas—that you would experience the fullness of Christ; that you would know in your heart the outpouring of grace upon grace; that the glory of the only Son from the Father would shine into your heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ; that you would be amazed that Christ can be so real to you”

So I pray for the hardened heart to be broken this Christmas. I pray that God puts me and you, my friend, in the place of worship where we truly find Him wonderful. Where his grace is sweet again. Where his goodness brings forth tears of gratitude and joy. May we never get used to what He has given us through sacrificing His Son for our redemption. I ask you now, have you gotten used to having hope? Do you find grace ordinary? Oh may it not be so!