I was watching an old movie not long ago about a famous adventurer. Just before the credits started rolling a caption appeared that said the man had died in 1953. As I sat there it really struck me how many people live on this earth and then simply without much warning, die. As a child there was a grave site near my house and I would walk through and read the grave stones. It was interesting how you can really learn the history of a community by reading the grave stones. They would say things like so and so died in World War I, having not yet lived the full potential of his life or so and so died, missionary to India for twenty five years and loving father of four. Thinking of these things after I had watched the movie, I posed a question to myself. If somebody in seventy five years was watching a movie about my life what would they say? Would they say, wow, that guy sure watched a lot of movies? Or would they say that guy lived his life to the fullest for God? I hope the latter would be true.
At this point in my life I have been asking a lot of different questions. Will my kids live their lives for the Lord? Will I be able to support my wife when we are old and grey? Is God going to bless Stacey and I with long lives or will one of us go home early? Will we ever return to the foreign mission field? Will my children turn out okay or am I causing them to go astray because they have a father who is gone a lot because of work? Questions, Questions, constantly on my mind, always appearing unexpectedly during times of silence. Who am I? Who is Mark Conard? Who am I becoming? Lord, I know You say to trust You, but it is so difficult. I can’t see You. I can’t touch You. I can’t hear You speaking back to me when I pray. It is so hard to understand You at times. Your way of communication is very frustrating to me. It is my aspiration to become more like You, Jesus, but when I think I am arriving I find I am worlds away from even understanding who You are. Right when I think I have a finger on it, You turn another page in my life and reveal something else to me that blows me away and then I have to start anew in my understanding.
I have learned that what I thought was the right of every human being is not necessarily the right of every Christian. Human beings, especially Americans would say it is my right to seek happiness, to want to be happy. That is not God’sunderstanding of our rights. God greatest desire for us is not necessarily for us to be happy. That is a strange statement isn’t it. What a mean thing to say. Mark, how could you possibly believe such a terrible thing about God? When I start getting comfy, God moves me. When we lust for happiness and give in to the temptations of this world to be happy, God takes a back seat in our lives. God does not want to take a backseat for anything. If there is one theme I see throughout the Bible it is suffering. Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to go and preach to all the world and tell them how to be happy. He knew that the Romans were not going to sit by and let Christianity take over the empire. They were going to kill these guys and anybody else who started preaching Jesus’ message.
I’m am about to say something that will surprise you even more. I have read article after article about how the numbers in churches all across the U.S. are going down. I think people have stopped coming to church because we have stopped telling them the truth. We have told them how to be happy. We have told them how be successful. We have told them how to make good decisions. Unfortunately, we have not told them that God wants them to suffer and go through the gauntlet of hardship in His name. Who do we think we are, filling our churches up with people who are asking what Jesus can do for them when the real question they should be asking is what can we do for Jesus? Who are we who strive for something as mediocre as happiness while millions around the world are begging for the bread of Christ?
I was reading an article in Newsweek the other day about the actress Angelina Jolie. This woman is doing a lot of work for the people of Sudan. She is going to these places and doing charity work among the starving and dying of that country. I think Jolie has made the discovery that life is not about her, but about those outside of her world, about the suffering that go without everyday. I believe she has tasted of what true fulfillment really involves, namely helping those who can’t help themselves. My only wish is that this young woman would come to Christ and understand how all this plays out in eternity. Maybe somewhere along her journey she will meet Christ and fellowship with Him.
So what is the answer? What does God want for us? I believe what God wants for us is found in the simple word, contentment. God wants us to be content in Him and in whatever He asks us to do and wherever He asks us to do it. Things do not bring contentment. Those who worship wealth will never make enough. The poor who worship possessions will never have enough. Why is it so hard to comprehend this principle? The answer lies in our wants. We want the things that our culture says is good to have. We want things we can see, touch, feel, brag about, enjoy, make us comfortable, make us look good, etc. Things that give us contentment are not seen, they are the things of the conscience and of the heart. They involve our character and our priorities.

Contentment is what we should strive for to be fulfilled. In the end it will be who we are and how we arrived that will matter, not what we possessed. The we will be able to say with the Apostle Paul “I have learned to be content …with a lot or with a little” (Phil.4:12). But to get to that place of “learning” it won’t be a comfortable ride. It will be through the crucible of suffering and hardship, where we (like Paul) share in those experiences with Christ. Happiness is a fleeting feeling that comes and goes depending on circumstance. But real contentment is a state of mind and heart. It transcends what goes on around us, where we find ourselves, or the multitude (or lack of) material possessions that fill our homes.

So back again to the movie about my life….I hope the title will be “Mark Conard: A Man Who Learned Contentment In All Things”.