Well, I'm travelling a little lighter these days - about five pounds.  Most of it was left walking 18 holes on a brutally hilly golf course last Monday, actually it was running to keep up with my 70 year-old partner.  Some guys just seem to get stronger as they age.  I impressed him with a few lucky shots on the driving range with my "Big Bertha", but after a few hits on the first hole he knew who was in charge.  Like they say, "Drive for show, but putt for dough."  Getting trounced by a Sr. Citizen is humbling.  But at least I got a nice sunburn!

          While attending the Sem in 1969 I worked three months at the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center, a warehouse for troubled youth on their way back to their own house or else to the Big House.  These were tough, street-wise kids who survived by their wits and their fists.  Yet after being there some weeks I had the feeling those youth were in a prison bigger than the JDC.  It was a prison with more inmates than beds, more prisoners than plates to feed them.  The prisoners in this place were overworked and underfed and most of them never get released.  They serve a life sentence in overcrowded conditions, where the walls are bare and the bunks are hard.  It's a place Max Lucado calls "the Prison of WANT."  It's a prison many of us may be in as well.

          The Prison of WANT.  You may know many of the inmates - they're all "in want."  They want something - something bigger, nicer, faster, thinner - but they all want.  They don't want much, mind you, just one thing.  One new job, one new car, one new spouse or one new house.  They don't want much, just one, and when they have it, they're sure they'll be "happy."  When they have one, they'll leave the prison, at least for awhile.  But then it happens.  The new car smell vanishes, the new job gets old, the neighbors get a bigger TV, or the new spouse has bad habits.  The new gets old and soon another ex-con returns to jail.  He's back in WANT all over again.

          Are you in that prison?  You are if you feel better when you have more or worse when you have less.  You're in the Prison of WANT if your joy is just one delivery away, one transfer away, one makeover away.  If your contentment comes from something you deposit, drive, drink or digest, then you're in the Prison of WANT.

          That's the bad news.  The Good News is that you have visitors, and they can get you paroled.  Come on out to the Visitation Room and be seated across the table from two men - David and Paul.  They have a secret to tell and together they mouth the word you've been waiting for - "Contentment!"  David says, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in WANT." (Psalm 23:1)   Paul says, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in WANT.  I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength."

          David and Paul have found a place free from want.  It's the presence of the Master, the green pastures of God.  It's also the graveyard of discontent.  David and Paul are telling us, "What you have in God is greater than what you don't have in life."  Wouldn't it be great if we could have the same?  If only we had what they had.  I can't wait till I get it!

          When I was first married in 1968 it seemed we were always saying, "I can't wait till..." and we'd finish it with any number of things.  "I can't wait till I'm a pastor, ...we get a house of our own, ...we have our children, ...we get a little money saved up."  But no matter what we had, the list never grew shorter.  It was a constant struggle to keep from saying it.

          Think for a moment about the things you own - your house, the car you drive, money you've saved (or lost!)  Think about the jewelry you've inherited, the stocks you've traded, the clothes you've bought.  Envision all your stuff, revel in it for a few moments, and then let me share two small bits of wisdom from the Word of God.  Are you ready?

          First, your stuff isn't yours!  Ask any coroner, any funeral director - no one takes anything with him.  When John D. Rockefeller died, he was the world's richest man, and his accountant was asked, "How much did he leave behind?"  The accountant's reply?  You guessed it - "All of it!"  The world's richest man of his day once wrote, "Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs.  He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand." (Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 5:15)   All that stuff in your garage, your living room, your bank account - it's not yours!

          And you know what else?  It's not you!  Who you are has nothing to do with the clothes you wear or the car you drive.  Jesus said, "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15)   God doesn't know you as a man in a nice suit, or a woman in a nice house, or a kid with a new bike.  God only sees your heart.  Samuel said, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

          When God looks at you, He doesn't look for what you've amassed.  He doesn't look at where you've put your things.  But He does want to see where you've put your faith.  We all have faith, but is our faith in Jesus or in our stuff?  Jesus had nothing, yet He had everything.  His treasure wasn't in His pocket, nor even in his friends.  His treasure was in His Heavenly Father.  And so is ours, as well.  When our treasure is in Jesus, contentment comes with it.  Like Paul said, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in WANT.  I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength."

          Darlene could say those words.  At age 45 she was diagnosed with MS, and it eventually took her strength.  Soon she could walk but weakly, feed herself but barely.  Over the next 25 years she battled depression and fear, but through it all she never lost her sense of gratitude or her faith.  You can see this today in her prayer list.  People in the church today still call her to pray for them or events or healings.  Each month I visited her, I'd give her people to pray over and later she'd ask how they were doing.  Sometimes the news was good and sometimes it wasn't, but she never stopped praying.  Her blessings outweighed her needs many times over.  Darlene learned contentment because she had her true treasure in Jesus Christ.  Today Darlene still radiates the love of Jesus Christ to all who meet her.

          There is a story about a missionary visiting a leper colony on the island of Molokai many years ago.  He was leading a worship service for the victims of that terrible disease and asked if anyone had a favorite song they'd like to sing.  When he did, a woman looked at him with the most disfigured face he'd ever seen.  She had no ears and no nose.  Even her lips were gone.  She raised a hand with no fingers and said, "Could we sing, 'Count Your Many Blessings'?"  The missionary started the song, but couldn't finish it.  He later said, "I'll never sing that song the same way again."

          Are you hoping for a change in circumstances that will help change your attitude?  If so, you're in the Prison of WANT, and you need to get out.  You need to learn the secret of traveling light with contentment that comes only by faith in Jesus.  And you need to know that what you have in Jesus is far greater than what you don't have in life.  The riches of earthly life are nothing compared to the riches of faith in Jesus.  He's the Priceless Treasure, the One who gives contentment.

          How would you finish this statement?  "I will be happy when __________?"  When I'm healed, when I'm promoted, when I'm married, when I'm popular, when I'm rich, when I'm....  How would you finish that statement?  Now with your answer in mind, consider this:  If your ship never comes in, if your dream never comes true, if your situation never changes, could you still be happy?  If not, you're stuck in the cell of discontent.  You're in prison and you need a way out.

          Jesus Christ is the Way out.  He's the Truth who will open the door.  He's the Life who will hold you up, the God who bends the prison bars.  David said, "The Lord sets the prisoners free." (Psalm 146:7)   You have a Shepherd who brings you back when you stray and brings you to green pastures.  Like the hymn says, "He breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets the prisoner free!"

          A man went to a minister for counseling.  He was in the midst of financial collapse.  "I've lost everything!" he moaned.  "I'm so sorry to hear you've lost your faith," said the pastor.  "No," the man corrected him, "I haven't lost my faith."  "Then I'm sad to hear you've lost your character."  "I didn't say that," he said, "I still have my character."  "Then I'm so sorry to hear you've lost your salvation."  "That's not what I said," the man objected.  "I haven't lost my salvation!"  "So you have your faith, your character, your salvation.  Seems to me," said the minister, "you've lost none of the things that really matter."  A Puritan once looked down at his meal of bread and water, bowed his head and prayed, "Thank You, God for all this and for Jesus too!"  Do you think you can ever pray like that?

          I once told a group of men that I was content with what I had in life, that I had few big goals any longer, and that if nothing more came my way, I was content.  You should have heard the objections!  "You're satisfied with life?  You can't mean that!  Pastor, that's like giving up!"  Well then, I guess I give up.  I am content with Christ and His love.  I am content with all He's given me, and while I'm not done working (far from it!) I'm done with being in the Prison of WANT.  I'm doing all I can to steer clear of that place.  I'll probably be lured to the door now and then, but my goal is "...To be content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in WANT.  I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength."  Care to join me in that goal?  God grant us all the grace to travel light with contentment, for Jesus' sake, amen

(Special thanks for ideas in this message go to Max Lucado)

Copyright © 2002 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.