I was flipping through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter on my phone earlier.  Not such a bad thing, nor inherently evil, but I realized that it can present a problem for me if I allow it to become one.  If merely glancing at others’ lives in any way erodes my thankful heart or I become ungrateful about my current circumstance, that is fertile ground where a seed of discontent may sprout.

Yep!  A single photo or a set of them has the ability to cause me, or any of us, to covet someone’s “perceived” life, lifestyle, clothing, children, home, schedule or vacations.  Has this ever happened to you?  If I want to be somewhere else when I view other people’s photos that too may become a poisonous seed that assaults my contentment.

At times it’s as simple as a thought about a change in my current geography or the desire to be in a warmer climate, but even that can breed discontentment.  I really do like my life!  I believe a sovereign God has me where I am each day for his purposes and his direction and for his glory. He is the master/director of the grand overarching drama of life. I need to just enter life’s stage daily, find my mark and go there. Go where he has me go and do as he directs. Great freedom and peace comes when I simply show up amazed that he even calls me to be part of this grand drama!  I then become more cheerful, joyful and content.  He has my days, ways and places covered so that I will seek him and reach out for him…even though he is never far away.
…your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (‭Psalm‬ ‭139‬:‭16‬ NIV84)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (‭Acts‬ ‭17‬:‭22-28‬ NIV84)