Why are you distressed? because you are in debt. Why are you in debt? because you are discontent. Why are you discontent?

The temptation to be discontent is everywhere. Advertisements bombard us, feeding our dissatisfaction by telling us we are incomplete and unfulfilled. And yet the seeds of discontentment are already present in our own sinful hearts from the fall.  Social media is also a major player in the detention center of our own discontent.  Here is a very good article in helping us be delivered from our social media maze… Social Media and Discontent

1 Samuel 22:1  Then others began coming—men who were in debt or in distress or who were just discontented—until David was the captain of about 400 men.

A person can love Jesus, but without a resolution that brings reconciliation…that painful experience can keep a person continually torn up with that pain as much as if the person continued to go through that experience.

Hebrews 12:15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled

Bitter Root Expectancy: When I have received a particular type of attention (rejection, abuse, neglect, violence) the bitter root judgment may set up a bitter root expectancy…a cycle or pattern that in my heart that sets off a series of either sudden of slow collapses that result in a “cave in”.  A blockage that is inescapable but not impenetrable.

Some people are so weak that they cannot restrain the unrest of their spirits, but in words and behavior they reveal what woeful disturbances there are within.

A part of your heart goes from being stuck, to trapped, to buried alive. Usually the memory is so severe (emotional heart attack) that to dig back out of it is usually not worth it to people.  What ends up happening is that, that part comes short of the grace of God (like cutting off your arm and its ability to touch, hold, have, lift, feel) and it springs forth things such as: anxiety, depression, generational curses, chronic anger, addictions, post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, mean spirit, attitudes, self abuse, suicide, inability for intimacy phobias, personality disorders, sexual confusion, immodesty, unhealthy soul ties, low self worth, patterns of failure.

The secret of contentment out of the cave only comes from those who have lived in the discontentment of the cave.

The diary of the Cave is David’s Psalms, but the cave is both a place that he physically inhabited and emotionally revisited.  Over and over again his entries remind us that the cave is not a grave if you rise up out of it.  People who are reading and praying the Psalms are emotionally healthy. Psalms are not to receive information but to release emotion.

The charismatics have edited the Psalms to be a collection of favorite praise songs. Yet the primary purpose of the Psalms is not to teach us, but to form us and heal us. They are the way to purge the soul of all the things that are destroying it.  We pray the psalms not to express what we feel primarily, but we pray them to learn to feel what they express.

• Proverbs are objective observations.

• Psalms are subjective supplications.

The way out of the cave is not more Expression, Repression or Depression, but Confession.

The Secret of contentment is found in Paul’s prison memoirs…Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.  Philippians 4:11-12

If the attainment of true contentment were as easy as keeping quiet outwardly, it would not need much learning. This is a learning process and the goal is to seek mastery in the art of this mystery-open secret and to be able to apply it in everywhere and in all things.

‘In whatsoever state I am’-The word ‘estate’ is not in the original, but simply ‘in what I am’. The secret is to be found within the character development of Christ within me, not my situation of my have’s or have knots.

If you only mask contentment on the outside but never do the homework on the inside then you’ve cheated and when the testing comes you will cave in.  So part of our discontent is the need to get past where we have never been before. Take new ground in the cave.

Let your conduct (manner of life, character) be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” Hebrews 13:5-6

Psalm 42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul?  Contentment is both a wrestling and resting of the spirit that shows the habitual character of grace that comforts and quiets the soul.  And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. In contentment there is a compound of all graces.

That’s the secret of contentment–to be captivated by Christ–as the Sovereign to whom I submit; as the Savior whom I serve; as the Sufficient One whom I trust in every situation.