I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. (Phil. 4:10-11 CSB)
Every plan on Paul’s calendar had to be cancelled. Trips. Meetings. Events. Each one was purged, no matter how painful. Where Paul once roamed freely, he was now in lockdown, confined to a limited space. He woke up in that space. Passed the day in that space. Ate in that space. Fell asleep in that space. His social interaction was severely restricted. He couldn’t visit his close friends. There was no possibility of being with extended family. Even coworkers were kept from him. And he had basically been laid off from the labor that he so loved. He was, for all purposes, unemployed. Everything he wished was in his hands was not, except for hours of unwanted and unfilled time. And no one could tell him how long this was going to last.
But in spite of all that had been stripped, Paul still possessed satisfaction. Even with a to-do list and a planning spreadsheet and a social calendar that were barren, Paul’s heart and soul and life were bounteous. Paul had learned a “secret.” Regardless of the condition of his world, Paul experienced contentment in his heart.
This doesn’t mean he didn’t grieve or lament. Just one chapter prior to this, Paul mentions the tears filling his eyes as he sees the brokenness of the world around him (Phil. 3:18). But Paul could, at the very same moment, sigh with sorrow and with satisfaction. Regardless of what was missing for Paul, Christ was always enough to Paul.
In 2010 two-time Grammy winning hip-hop artist and bestselling author Lecrae released a single entitled “God is enough”:
You can be the fliest man
With a hundred-grand in your hand
Swag right, sag tight
And a Gucci fan
You can be the richest, be the smartest, be the hardest, all of that
But I guarantee before i die they all are fallin’ flat
Used to want a lot of things
All the stuff that’s on TV
Education, cars and clothes
Fashion lights, and jewelery
Focused on the wrong stuff
Now I got my eyes on You and now i know that
God is enough
God is enough
God is enough
You are enough
Never too much
More than enough
God is enough
You are enough for me
The anthem is an inspiring call to trust that, contrary to what culture compels us to believe, God, and nothing else, is enough. It’s a truth hard-held by many, even those who follow Christ. Tony Evans writes this:
“Most Christians do not actually believe that God is more than enough. Too often, God is the last one that we appeal to. And so we wind up becoming spiritually emaciated, unable to handle the ups and downs of life … So many Christians are living lives of profound dissatisfaction. We go hungrily from one table to the next, experiencing one disappointment after another, and we’re just not satisfied. We discover, once we’ve lived long enough, that there’s no friendship, no relationship, no ownership, no championship, no scholarship, no fellowship that can fully satisfy our wants.”
God is enough. Even if all were stripped from you–fortune, future, family, friends–if you still had God you would have enough. Even if you didn’t meet a single measurement on someone else’s lists of “must-do’s” or “must-be’s” or “must-have’s” or “must-see’s”, if you still had God you would have enough.
This confession doesn’t mean we put up with injustice, the forcible taking by some of what is divinely destined for all. It doesn’t mean we don’t lament loss, that suffered by ourselves or by others. But this confession does mean that even in pain and in protest we find ultimate pleasure in God alone. He is always sufficient even as we fight against the trauma or tragedy behind the insufficiency of life.
This is the confession of David:
“Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” (Ps. 63:3 ESV)
Look up into the sky and say these words aloud for yourself: “Your steadfast love, God, is better than life!” Living in God’s love is the only living David longs for. Without this love, there is no life, even if all else ever desired is present. With this love, there’s nothing like life, even if all else ever desired is absent. Even if you hold nothing, if you hold God, you hold everything. He, alone, is enough.
But how then do we experience this reality? One frightening yet fruitful practice that leads toward this is called Suscipe. Suscipe is a prayer recommended by St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the sixteenth century he wrote his Spiritual Exercises and urged the praying of this prayer as a way of standing on the sufficiency of God. It’s a prayer that, in times of plenty, reminds us that joy is found in God, not in the vehicle in our garage or the size of our garden or the quality of our grades. It’s a prayer that, in times of poverty, reminds us that we need nothing but God to discover contentment in our difficult condition.
Ignatius’ “Contemplation on the Love of God” is the concluding meditation of the Exercises. It presents a God who loves without limit and who invites us to make a generous response of love in return.The contemplation invites reflection on four themes:1) God’s gifts to us (life, family, friends, faith, church, eternal life); 2) God’s self-giving in Jesus; 3) God’s continuing work in the world; and 4) The limitless quality of God’s love. In many ways, the Spiritual Exercises points to and finds its sum in these final meditations. Truly grasping God’s love is what the exercises are all about.
Suscipe, then, is the culmination of the final contemplation. That is, Ignatius believed that the repetition of these words would shape us and form us into people who more deeply understood the all-sufficiency of the love of God. The word “suscipe” or “take/ receive” is the first word in the Latin translation of the prayer:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.
The most fruit-producing lines are the final two: “Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.” These lines urge us to say that God’s love is enough. God’s love is better than anything else we might have in life. The rest of the prayer is our daily (it is to be prayed daily) practice of turning over everything else we have in life and professing (and then, hopefully experiencing) that if we have God’s love, we have enough. We need nothing else.
Here’s a timely reason why contentment matters–the more we are genuinely content with what we do have, in God, the less we will use and abuse other people to gain what we do not have. The more I make God my end, the less likely I am to treat him and others as the means to my ends. If God is all I truly need, I will not devour, destroy or decimate others to get what I need. Discontentment is the root of all discrimination. Racism, classism, sexism, ageism and all other forms of bigotry grow out of discontentment. They are the striving after what we feel we do not have enough of and will not be happy until we get more of–power, position and prestige. But when we are deeply satisfied by God alone, no longer seeking anything else, we are free to treat all humans not as means to any end, but as ends in themselves. We are free to give ourselves to them generously and lovingly. When my cup is already full, I don’t demand to drink from the cups of others. I can, instead, share the overflowing bounty of my own cup with them.
I pray this prayer every morning, along with the Lord’s Prayer. To be honest, there have been seasons when I stopped praying. It was too painful. So much had been taken from me that I wasn’t sure I could say, “Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.” But I returned to it. I find it deeply formative, this daily reminder that no matter what I do not have, as long as I do have his love, I have enough.
