Article January 5, 1957 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Richard Ferris

An editorial item in The Evangelical Christian Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I think the greatest gift God can confer on any of us apart from that of eternal life is that of contentment. Not complacency, mind you, which is sometimes mistaken for contentment, but a humble thankfulness for the lot wherein we feel God has placed us. There is so little of this in the world today, and the sad thing is that few even among professing Christians seem blessed with the gift of sweet content. "Be content with such things as ye have," paul said on one occasion. "Why should I be," many petulantly ask, "since so many others have so much more than I?" Paul supplies the reason in the very next phrase, to which there is no answer: "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." It is resting on this tremendous fact that he expects us to see life in its right perspective and evaluate things at their true worth. . ..

The classic example of sweet content, it always has seemed to me, is found in the Old Testament. It concerns a certain Shunammite woman who made a little "prophet's chamber" for a man of God when he should pass that way. When he sought to reward her for her kindness to him he asked her what there was that he could do for her. Speaking for Elisha, his master, the servant said, "Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all care; what is to done for thee? wouldst thou be spoken for to the captain of the host?" It seems to me that the woman returned a great answer, great in its simplicity and the serenity of heart and spirit it revealed. "And she answered, I dwell among mine own people." It is little wonder that in a previous verse of the same chaper she is called "a great woman." None but a great soul could have made such a devastating reply which did not so much answer the question of Elisha but obliterated it. We rather think it was a reply after the prophet's own heart, and we are perfectly sure the man of God was delighted with it. It was not the reply of wit or of brilliance, but the simple expression of a rare and profound soul. God help us all who bear His name to wear the flower called heartsease in our breast.

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