Last week I got to attend the National Youth Workers Convention (NYWC) in San Diego and listen to some amazing speakers and artists. It was encouraging and inspiring. If you need some of that, I would recommend you check out the one coming in Nashville. {Details Here}

At any conference I think it is easy to be filled with discontentment and dissatisfaction. It’s an easy trap for us in ministry, right? We go somewhere to learn and we get stuck instead comparing ourselves to others. “If I had the resources they had…” “If he/she was my boss than ministry would be so different…”

One morning during a general session while we were worshipping, I was surprised by a rare moment of contentment. We worshipped alongside Aubrey Assad, this was the first time I heard her and I am hooked, and we sang her song “I shall not want.”

It brought me back to something I did last year with my senior girls, we set out to memorize Philippians 4:11-13 together.

“Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”

As we did this, it was the first time I noticed that the statement “I can do all things with Christ” was connected to Paul’s journey of contentment! He could live with plenty or with little and be content because Jesus gave him the strength.

Ministry can be a sort of journey in discontentment. We are always pushing and striving for the next thing. Trying to reach more students, creating better programs…go, go, go…do more and be more.

Contentment says right now is enough. It sees each moment and individual for its full worth. Contentment says God is more than enough…and surprisingly it says right now I am enough.

Contentment is peace. All of which comes from knowing that we aren’t alone, but we are with and in Christ who gives us strength…He is enough and today we are enough.

Praying for you.

Neely {@neelym}