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No matter how hard we try, there's always someone else who's smarter, richer, better looking or more athletic. TV commercials and flashy magazine ads only feed the feeling that our lives could be so much better. We think, if I just had this or that, I'd be happy. In his book Spiritual Depression, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones talks about how to move beyond this "never enough" syndrome. He uses the Apostle Paul as an example of one who had done just that—learned to be satisfied. Yes, even in prison, Paul was able to write these words:

" … I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want" (Philippians 4:12).

Paul had come to learn this great truth by working out a great argument. Let me give you some of the steps of the argument which you can work out for yourself. I think that the apostle's logic was something like this. He said to himself:

1. Conditions are always changing, therefore I must obviously not be dependent upon conditions.
2. What matters supremely and vitally is my soul and my relationship to God—that is the first thing.
3. God is concerned about me as my Father, and nothing happens to me apart from God. Even the very hairs of my head are all numbered. I must never forget that.
4. God's will and God's ways are a great mystery, but I know that what ever He wills or permits is of necessity for my good.
5. Every situation in life is the unfolding of some manifestation of God's love and goodness. Therefore my business is to look for this peculiar manifestation of God's goodness and kindness and to be prepared for surprises and blessings . …What, for example, is the great lesson that Paul learned in the matter of the thorn in the flesh? It is that: "When I am weak then am I strong" [2 Corinthians 12:1-10]. Paul was taught through physical weakness this manifestation of God's grace.
6. I must regard circumstances and conditions, not in and of themselves … but as a part of God's dealing with me in the work of perfecting my soul and bringing me to final perfection.
7. Whatever my conditions may be at this present moment they are only temporary, they are only passing, and they never rob me of the joy and the glory that ultimately await me with Christ.

… [Paul] had faced conditions and circumstances in the light of the Chris tian truth and the Christian Gospel, and had worked out these steps and stages. And having done so he says: "Let anything you can think of happen to me, I remain exactly where I was. Whatever may happen to me, I am left unmoved."

The big principle that emerges clearly is that he had learned to find his pleasure and his satisfaction in Christ and always in Christ. That is the positive aspect of the matter. We must learn to depend on Him, and in order to do that we must learn to know Him, we must learn to have communion with Him, we must learn to find our pleasure in Him.

Let me put it plainly—the danger with some of us is to spend far too much of our time even in reading about Him. The day may come, … when we shall not be able to read. Then comes the test. Will you still be happy? Do you know Him so well that though you become deaf or blind this fount will still be open? Do you know Him so well that you can talk to Him and listen to Him and enjoy Him always? Will all be well be cause you have always been so dependent upon your relationship to Him that nothing else really matters? That was the apostle's condition. His intimacy with Christ was so deep and so great that he had become independent of everything else.

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