Let's talk about signs of cat contentment.

If we find ourselves in a relationship, we will assiduously practice the arts of what psychologists call distance management. When the chance of reaching a truly happy state appears, we'll subtly discover ways to introduce a chasm. We'll have an argument, spoil a birthday, ruin a holiday. We'll find we have to do a lot of work for an upcoming exam or presentation, that our gang of friends needs us to be somewhere else, that we forgot to return the credit card or tax bill, that our appearance requires a lot of our attention or that we like to flirt with a stranger at a party who suddenly seems very attractive indeed. In both tiny and large ways, we'll know just how to lower the mood, scupper a bond and destroy trust. Perhaps not enough to end a relationship completely, but certainly enough to worry our partner sufficiently as to our solidity that we can be privately sure things will never truly fly. Friends may commiserate with us on our so-called bad luck. Psychologists will note our superlative skill at romantic sabotage. With this to sound a bit like us, compassion is required. We should reflect back on our pasts and wonder at the connection between our fractured bonds with parental figures and our disrupted adult attachments. We aren't like this because we're wicked, we've just been very badly hurt. Once we understand how our skill at independence was acquired, we'll be in a better position to see that it has in reality outlived its rationale. We may still feel immensely apprehensive at the prospect of contentment, but we may finally be able to admit that we are, first and foremost, acting out of fear. Rather than dismissing our partners, we may stick closer to a much more awkward truth – that we're tempted to draw away from them because we're immensely scared that they might finally be in a position to make us very happy – and that simply nothing so unutterably and boundlessly frightening has ever happened to us before.

It's in such moments of knotted misery that we may gain some relief from reframing our situation. While we may not be able to overcome our burdens themselves, it does lie in our power to alter what these burdens have to mean to us. We may not have to take them as proof of our stupidity or ill-adjustment. They can be signs that we're destined to have interesting lives rather than calm ones, lives marked by a high degree of exploration, psychological understanding and striving rather than settled certainty and equilibrium, what we lack in terms of contentment we may make up for in terms of insight and experience.

And not just happiness, but purpose, fulfillment, contentment, joy.

which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment

and these rare uncertainties had cast  hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment.  

and dangled their legs against the bench in excess of contentment.

It's a contentment issue.

Instead of pursuing happiness, we need to cultivate contentment.

Now think about where you're planted think about what nourishments are around you or what toxins are around you what sort of stuff are you taking it in to your life on an everyday basis what is around you where are you because it doesn't matter how strong or capable you are how much willpower you've got if the soil around you is bad if the nourishment and the things that you're taking in are bad for you or you're not getting the things that you need then you're gonna struggle and most of us spend our lives on surface level type fix we're trying to fix the symptoms you're trying to get rid of our anxiety or our bitterness or or we're trying to get rid of our tiredness and our exhaustion and we're working harder and trying to come up with new ways of doing things or just trying to numb the pain or whatever it might be but thing is if you've got a car that's struggling because you put the wrong fuel in it and then no matter any amount of pressing the buttons on the dashboards and twiddling knobs and all that stuff that stuff is gonna make any difference until you deal with a source of the fuel if you get the right fuel in then actually everything else tends to take care of itself or everything else tends to be much easier but if the fuel source is bad if the fuel source isn't what you need then actually the cars never gonna work the engines never gonna take off it's never gonna work out and there's a moment where Jesus is talking to his followers about this he's coming towards the end of his life he knows he's gonna die and so he's given them last pieces of wisdom and advice and in typical Jesus fashion he cuts through the noise and he just gets straight to the heart of it in John 15 and this is what he says in verse 4 I think it is he says to his followers he said I want you to abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me he's saying you can't bear fruit unless you abide in me by abide he means stay connected it means remain with it means where you like dwell where you are where you place yourself he's saying if you want to bear fruit the kind of symptoms the things that come out your life are about being connected to something that's greater than yourself so where are you abiding where are you connected to where you would dwell in what's around you you know we often ask to each other you know how are you doing how are you doing well maybe we should say like where are you abiding where are you connected where you drawing your nourishment from what's kind of coming in because that actually will then answer the question of how are you doing and think about it where are you dwelling where are you abiding where are you placing your connections where are you drawing stuff from you know for many of us isn't it's online it's tik-tok and Instagram reels if we turn to that stuff when we're a bit bored or a bit low or we just spend a lot of time or there's a lot around notifications and our updates and scrolling the news that actually whenever there's a spare minute we fill it and for many of us there's no abiding in space or stillness or just giving our head space some of us abide in the place of overwork we fill ourselves with projects and activities and that can be paid work it can be household type works it can be projects or ideas we can dwell we can abide in those places that's where we draw our nourishment from and our help and others it's in those relationships and connections with other people and what is the quality of that you know some of us abide in negativity and gossip and criticism and that's a place where we are maybe in the office or the workplace or a family and there's just lots of negativity and bringing other people down and the connections are built on gossip there's certain social media platforms that build their money on being a place of gossip and criticism and fake news that kind of rips other people apart and so where do you dwell because here is the thing you know whatever we dwell determines the fruit I think there's this it's a bit of a cheesy phrase but your roots determine your fruit you know wherever you dwell will determine what fruit that you see in our lives and if we're really honest with ourselves sometimes we look at where we've dwelt where we spent our time what we've been taken into our lives and then we like oh no wonder I'm anxious fearful no wonder there's a lack of courage no wonder I'm not living a bigger life no wonder I'm not just filled with peace and contentment and we beat ourselves up and we try and fix the surface stuff all the time our roots are in unhealthy soil I remember I was going through this season in my life when God spoke to me he said to me that you are to double your time with me in the morning part of my own practices I'll spend time in quiet and prayer and reading the Bible in the morning and there was this season where God said I want you to double that time alright twice as much which is actually it was quite difficult for me to do and you meant I was gonna do like slightly less work I'd get to work later and all that sort of stuff but I just felt it was right and so I just did it and I blocked in twice as much time every day and then what happened is I hit one of the worst storms in my life the job I was in I was at a senior position in the job and then but I was bringing in some changes but there was other people in the organization that weren't happy with that and so they finally formed this group and they were trying to oust me and there was whisper and there was gossip and there was slander campaigns there was all sorts of stuff kind of going on to get me out and it rocked me I don't handle conflict very well to be honest I quite like people to like me and but God ahead of time it told me actually I need to double the strength of my roots and I survived that experience and the changes that God has called me to bring I brought through but only just do you know I mean I was hanging on by my fingertips at the time and I wonder what fruit of my life would have come if I hadn't doubled my depth of my roots at that time and I haven't done that for all the time I did that for about 12 months and then I went into a new season but the kind of point I'm making I guess is that we get to decide you know I mean we get to decide where we abide and it's obviously plants are planted in unhealthy soil they can't get up and go somewhere else if an engine has got the wrong fuel in it can't head off to the garage and empty etc it has no control but we're different we get to decide and we can change things at any point and I wanted to suggest just three simple steps that you could just like ponder through and it's not like a guilt trip it's not about religion and things you have to do and that you're not good enough and you don't do these things but listening to the invitation of the Holy Spirit and I think that he just very gently wants us to take the first step where we just audit our inputs where we just look honestly at what's around us and where we are abiding and where we are drawn stuff and we just look at it honestly and go okay what's going on here you know where am I what are my rhythms what are my habits what I look at first thing in the morning you know what do I talk about with my colleagues at lunchtime you know what do I watch what are the things that I'm bringing into my life and what effect are they having all right there's not a judgment thing but it's good to just know where we sat and then the second step is just think actually do I want to do a swap I'm a happy with all that or actually do I want to do a swap now what you can't do is just delete stuff if you just say well I'm not going to do that anymore because if there's a vacuum then you'll just fill it with the crap again you know so you have to do a swap which might think the first thing in the morning I'm not going to do that or I'm no longer going to do that but instead I'm going to do this you know instead of gossiping with my colleagues at lunchtime I'm gonna go for a walk or I'm gonna hang out with that friend or actually I'm gonna ask this question in a meeting or whatever it might be you've got to do a swap you can't just say I'm not going to do that anymore you can't just do a negative you've got to think about very specific and practically what I would replace it with so step one is like do this kind of audit and just honestly survey the landscape and then think about if there's any swaps that you want to make and then the last thing and this is really around how change happens for us and how we make changes in our lives is to pick only one right so what normally will happen when I'm talking to people like this they'll see all the things that are wrong and they feel terrible and they make all sorts of plans and resolutions and say I'm going to do this every day I'm going to do 20 of these or whatever and the truth is you can only change one thing you cannot change thing you can make five resolutions and in a month's time I'll phone you up and they will not have happened all right to change one thing takes a lot of mental effort and a lot of willpower a lot of help of the Holy Spirit so just pick one and make it really small pick something that's so small that you can't fail at all right you want something that has that is easy to change that you can imagine actually I could do that for the rest of my life in the next 12 months I could make that change no problem all right if you make it like a big resolution it's like can you do that for 12 months time are you likely to be still doing that because the power comes in doing things for a long time not just like once yeah for one day you think I'm gonna pray for 15 minutes today and not watch rails and you do that once for 15 minutes it's not really going to transform your life but if you do something for 12 months no matter how small then actually then we start to get into the groove then things become really really possible so start really small pick it like the easiest thing and make it something that you want to do not something you have to do but something that you want to think yeah actually I would like to do more of that I would like to do that and then what you'll find is when you change the soil you'll change the fruit you don't need to worry so much about the fear or the anxiety or having courage or resilience or whatever it is that the fruit will come when you change where your roots are and so that's it and it's an invitation for Jesus not rule not legalism but trust me trust me trust me if you change where you're planted then actually you'll change what you see in the fruit of your life and if you're stuck for some ideas of things that you could do then want to check out this video and I just talk about the five things I do every single week to stay spiritually strong and you don't have to do everything that I do but maybe it might give you a few ideas anyway thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next video