Refreshingly Full

And that’s not all, folks! If you call in the next ten minutes, we’ll throw in our extra-fancy doohickey FOR FREE! Don’t wait! Call now! This offer won’t last!

Take a minute to breathe.

I loathe those commercials, cheesy as they may be. I don’t mind the cheese. I mind the urgent feeling they create, the one that makes me feel a bit strangled if I don’t jump on board and do exactly what they’re telling me to do exactly when they’re telling me to do it. The whole thing is just too much for me.

But then I turn around and pull up my Pinterest feed which hollers that my family’s minds will be blown by this kind of mac and cheese and that how is my closet even a closet without THESE PANTS?! and that I can get Wonder Woman’s abs in two weeks with this juice and that I need these 15 steps to calm in my life (please catch the irony). Or I go to Facebook and its perpetual 2-minute challenge to make my reality crumple in comparison. Or I look at how talented these artists are over on Instagram.

It’s all a sales pitch, crying out to my soul that I don’t have enough. Enough whatever. Detergent, meaningful relationships (because, come on, if you’re not braiding your bestie’s hair into yours, can you really say you’re besties?), cool stuff in my house, cooking skills, professional clothes, amazing lifestyle, hot romance, important things on my super-cute decorated calendar, whatever.

It’s all about enough. And I’ve definitely had enough.

Wanna know one of the most refreshing and least sexy words of all time?

Contentment.

The part of me that craves new and exciting and shiny and busy grates at this concept. Contentment. It’s like another word for apathy. Or boredom. Or lameness.

But, oh, it’s not! the other part of me replies. It’s remembering I’m planted firmly in truth and that this world is passing away. It’s the only word that restores joy in the midst of this warped time in which MORE MORE MORE has the run of the place.

The person who comes to mind when I think of contentment is a breath of fresh air. Because having and being and doing the nicest everything doesn’t really matter to her, I can let my try-hard die around her. I can relax. I’m not absorbed in worry or comparison. She’s full of nothing but Jesus, and He is enough for her. Through her, He reminds me that He’s enough for me, too.

If you’ve ever had a tall glass of ice water on a hot day, you know precisely how refreshing a full cup can be.

Let’s be that for the world around us. As they all scramble for more and better and bigger and faster and newer and all the things all the time, let’s take joy in this moment, this place, these faces, these resources, and this big God who loves us and gives us everything we need. We really are a full people.

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.

(2 Peter 1:3)