Preparing for Contentment

It's been a hard morning (and it's only half over)! When I wrote my original post on contentment, I was having a good day. It was easy (well, easier) to remember what is true. Isn't that always the way things go? But what's helped me this morning to fight for contentment is that a few days ago when I wasn't needing to fight so hard, I wrote down what was true, and what to do about it. So today I reread my own post, and now I'm seeking to implement what I knew to be true just the other day, but today am tempted to doubt.

Do you prepare for temptations to discontentment (or any other sin) when you're not currently facing them? Jeremiah Burroughs has helpful counsel for fighting sin before you fight it:

"Did God give you more prosperity before? It was to prepare you for afflictions. We should look at all our outward prosperity as a preparation for afflictions. If you had done so, then it would not have been so difficult for you to endure afflictions now. If when you had great wealth, you made use of this mercy of God to prepare you for your afflicted estate, then the change of your estate would not be so grievous. Every Christian should say: 'Have I wealth now? I should prepare for poverty. Have I health now? I should prepare for sickness. Have I liberty? Let me prepare myself for imprisonment. How do I know what God may call me to? Have I comfort and peace now in my conscience, does God shine upon me? While I have this let me prepare for God's withdrawing from me. Am I delivered from temptations? Let me prepare now for the time of temptations.' If you would do so, the change of your condition would not be so grievous to you. Sailors who are in a calm prepare for storms; would they say, 'If we never had calms we could bear storms, but we have had calms so many years or weeks together, that this is grievous'? In your calm you are to prepare for storms, and the storm will be less."

"Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer..." (Proverbs 30:24-25)