“Motorboats and Thermostats”—Philippians 4:11-12
"Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need." [Philippians 4:11-12]
There’s an often-repeated story about a businessman who goes on vacation to the ocean, where he finds a man in disheveled, rather tattered looking clothes fishing off the pier with a very slow, laid-back demeanor. This man at the pier was clearly hoping to catch what would become his supper. “You know,” the businessman, “if you took another job right now and worked two jobs, you might soon have enough money to buy yourself a boat.”
“And then what would I do?” asks the laid-back man with the fishing pole.
“Well, you could catch more fish, make more money, and soon, you could get an even bigger fishing boat, to catch even more!” came the confident reply from the businessman.
“Oh, I see,” says the other. “And then what?”
The businessman seems eager to be giving out this entrepreneurial advice, so he answers, “You could hire more and more workers who would do more and more of the fishing and you could be the head of the company, in charge and calling the shots!”
“Oh, I see… and then what?” came the familiar reply.
“Well, then you could make enough money that after enough years, you could retire, put your feet up, enjoy life, and just catch some fish all day long,” says the businessman… to which the other man can only smile and reply:
“Sir, I am doing that already.”
Turns out it is possible to be quite content with only a fishing pole to your name, and it is just as possible to be quite empty inside while your giant house is full of possessions. And if that is true, then being content is not directly related to the external circumstances around you.
Or at least, it doesn’t have to be. If you decide that your happiness is all tangled up with the amount of possessions you own, or the way your day is going, or how full your dance card is, or whether the other people in your life act the way you want them to, well, then, yeah, you have just let your external circumstances hijack your life. But on the other hand, if there is something else, something internal, something planted and rooted deep within you, that gives you a deep joy, then you can be content even when all the other outside stuff feels like it is falling apart. The fickle thing we call "happiness" may not be able to withstand much of the strain and stress of real life, but the real McCoy called "joy" can. Joyful contentment persists even through struggles in life.
The difference is something like this. A sailboat can only move when there is enough wind to fill the sails and push it forward, and it can only move where the wind’s direction will allow it to go. A sailboat (if it doesn’t also have some kind of onboard motor) is more or less at the mercy of external factors. A motorboat, on the other hand, has its own internal power source, and so it can travel even when there is no wind—or when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. Even though rough seas and strong winds, a motorboat has a source of direction and energy that comes from within, and therefore it is able to continue on regardless of the weather.
Paul talks about contentment, even through struggles, in the much the same way: it is about having a God-planted source of joy in our lives that makes is possible for us not to pin our hopes and our peace on what happens to be going on outside of us. And that kind of Christ-centered peace allows us to keep on an even keel regardless of what the wind is doing today. Christians are motorboats in this sense, I guess.
Dr. King had a famous analogy along similar lines talking about the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer can only measure what is going on in the air around you, but cannot change anything. It is affected by how hot or cold it is outside, but can't trigger the furnace or the air conditioner to effect a change. A thermostat, however, has the power to make a difference and change the room in which it is placed, and to keep a constant temperature regardless of what is going on outside. Something like that is the power of contentment, too--instead of being defined by the conditions outside the window, contentment enables us to have a steadiness through the struggles.
Notice that Paul doesn’t say he can be content all the time because being a Christian automatically means that things go right for us all the time. And notice that he doesn’t say that more food or creature comforts wouldn’t be nice. It’s just that his source of peace isn’t tied to having more. Rather, it comes from trusting in a God who promises to provide enough. Enough for the day, enough for a life, enough to satisfy. When you can trust in that promise, the worries that come from the need always to have more, more, more just… dissolve. You don’t always have to keep asking, “What next?” like you are driven to buy or manage or hoard more stuff. Paul finds his peace, his groundedness, doesn’t come from how things are going around him—they come from the presence of God who dwells within him. And that is what he is offering to us, too.
There is a line from a poem my grandfather used to read to me, from Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” that talks about, “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.” Something like that is the freedom of Paul’s kind of contentment, of Christian contentment. It’s not saying that it’s not nice to have more than you need from time to time, or a surprise bonus piece of cake after dinner, rather than being hungry. It’s not saying it’s not nice to have the creature comforts of air conditioning or cable television or a smart phone or whatever your personal wish-list would include. There's nothing inherently sinful about the cookie-cutter life of the 2.5 kids, spouse, the dog, and the white picket fence, either. It’s just saying that those external things are impostors when it comes to really determining our deep peace. I know folks who don't have any of the standard boxes checked for what is "supposed" to make for a happy life, who nevertheless are buoyed up through the hardest times. And I also know folks who have the usual markers of money, status, romance, and possessions but who are always chasing their tails for a moment's peace.
Paul's advice is that all those external factors can come and go, and we will not be left sitting still dead in the water waiting for wind. When we let Christ’s promise to hold us always be enough for us, we don’t always have to be eyeing the next leap, the next pay-grade, the next tax-bracket, the next night out, or the next tech upgrade as though that will make us happy. And we won't have to live perpetually in the fear that some struggle or challenge in life will be able to rob us of our joy--it's can't. Joy is unburglable (I may have just invented a word there...).
Be a motorboat, able to keep moving forward regardless of the wind. Be a thermostat, able to keep a constant warmth regardless of what the weather is doing outside.
Maybe we have already been given all we need to be content… right where we are.
Lord Jesus, give to us today the eyes to recognize the gifts you have placed in our lives today, to appreciate them, and to find peace in your presence, independent of what is going on around us.
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