Shedding the Dragonskin of Discontent

I got more emails and facebook comments from my last contentment exercise than any other post and thought, hmmm, maybe my dear luminous friends have an issue with this like I do.  So, here is a bit of my story with discontent.  We'll keep talking about it bit by bit over the next few weeks.  Have courage, my sister, to look into the abyss of your own soul, as one early desert father would say, and be willing to roll up your sleeves with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Freedom takes courage.

A few years ago the Lord pulled back one of the dragon skins (like Eustace in the Voyage of the Dawntreader by CS Lewis) of my heart and revealed a thick skin of discontent.  One of the major culprits? I always looked forward toward something else that would make "it all better" a pot at the end of the rainbow if anything is!  The future certainly would be better than this, I thought.  Unfortunately, I was so busy dwelling on what life wasn't giving me, that I would miss the gift of the present. 

I read "Calm My Anxious Heart" by Linda Dillow and loved her chapters on contentment.  Those chapters revealed how thick discontent really was through my everyday life.  I woke up holding discontent tight like a treasure, wore feelings of resentment like armor as I cleaned, and it spewed out of my mouth when I was chatting with friends.  Not too pleasant a dragonly sight.  My husband was finding me scaly and difficult.  This was a thick dragon skin that demanded more than just a confession.  It had to be ripped off scale by scale by God himself.

I needed my mind renewed by Truth Himself...given through the Word and as we "reasoned together" in a journal.  Scripture memorization was one of the only ways I could find that would "slay" the dragon skin.  Then, each day I kept a contentment journal.  This issue created too much havoc in my family as well as my own heart to just peak in at it, forget it and still live in the mud.  I know that if I don't learn something now, I will end up learning it again.  I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. 

If you feel the same way, go get "Calm my Anxious Heart" and read the contentment chapters then find yourself a pretty journal with empty pages to encourage your conversation with the Lord over this issue.  If you are like me, this dragon skin will be thicker than you imagined. 

On the inside cover of the journal write Philippians 4:11-13 slowly committing it to memory: 

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. 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.
And what was his secret?

I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

Couple that scripture with Ephesians 1 that says that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us!  Wow.  That's potent resurrection-creating stuff!  I want that in my life!

Just that scripture alone has the power to slip many dragon scales from tender skin. 

You'll find after you have shed the thick dragon skin of discontentment that you are more luminous than ever.  We can worship much better when we aren't complaining all the time!