What's 'Enough'?

Recently the newest version of a cell phone with all the bells and whistles hit the market.  TV news captured long lines at retailers; lines that had begun forming days before the official release.  People camped out in tents and slept in sleeping bags on sidewalks to wait for the opportunity to be among the first to own the latest and best in big name phones.  One report mentioned that many in the lines already possessed the immediate predecessor to the new phone and it is less than a year old! 

Contentment seems to elude us.  We never seem satisfied with what we have; never seem to have enough.  What is enough?  Enough phone?  Enough house?  Enough car?  Enough money? On and on it goes!  I am grateful that we live in a country with such an abundance of variety and vast opportunity but what is the ultimate cost of a constant quest for the latest, biggest and best?  What happens when our  desires and ambitions exceed our resources?  How can we live with the resulting disappointment and discontentment?

The apostle Paul understood what it meant to live in the ebb and flow of plenty and scarcity and he knew how to live contentedly.  He had discovered the 'secret of being content in every and any situation' (Philippians 4:12).  You see, Paul viewed contentment as a condition of the soul learned and developed in the course of a growing dependence upon Jesus for everything.  Whatever Paul had, whether by his own labor or the generosity of others had its ultimate origin in the providence of God.  There were times when he had plenty and times when he had little to nothing; but his sense of being content never wavered.

Here's Paul's advice on finding true contentment:  Be generous with others; give freely and you will experience the generosity of God in your own life (Philippians 4:14-19).  Now that's enough for anybody!