Contentment

From the Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646): The Mystery of Contentment, Seven Particulars:

Without the understanding of these things, and the practice of them you will never come to a true contentment in your life; Oh, you will be bunglers (one who is clumsy and awkward) in this trade of Christianity. But the right perceiving of these things will help you to be instructed in it, as in a mystery.

1. A truly contented man, though he is the most contented man in the world, is the most dissatisfied man in the world, that is, those things that will satisfy the world will not satisfy him.

2. So this is the art of contentment: not to seek to add to our circumstances, but to subtract from our desires.

3. What, do you think that there is no way for the contentment of your spirit, but to get rid of your burden? O you are deceived. The way of contentment is to add another burden, that is, to labor to load and burden your heart with your sin; the heavier the burden of your sin is to your heart, the lighter will the burden of your affliction be to your heart, and so you shall come to be content.

4. You do not find one Godly man who came out of an affliction worse than when he went into it; though for a while he was shaken, yet at the last he was better for the affliction. ... This is the mystery of contentment, not so much by removing the evil, as by metamorphosing the evil, by changing the evil into good.

5. And the truth is, I know nothing more effective for quieting a Christian soul and getting contentment than this, setting your heart to work in the duties of the immediate circumstances that you are now in, and taking heed of your thoughts about other conditions as a mere temptation.

6. This is the art of the Christian's contentment: he melts his will into the will of God, and makes over his will to God: "Oh Lord, You shall choose our inheritance for us" (Psalm 47:4).

7. The mystery consists not in bringing anything from the outside to make my condition more comfortable, but in purging out something that is within. ... The way to contentment is to purge out your lusts and bitter(ness) (James 4:1).