How to Have Lasting Contentment: Why Success Doesn’t Satisfy

Since the dawn of time, individuals marked by success have struggled to experience joy and contentment. Don’t believe me? An article from PEOPLE magazine interviewing different celebrities showed the darker side of success. For instance, the star of the Harry Potter films, Daniel Radcliffe, admitted to struggling with alcohol abuse when fame and attention became overwhelming. Similarly, supermodel Gigi Hadid revealed that she lost many of her true friends as a result of her fame. Another example that comes to mind is the show Mad Men, a series that followed the life of a successful businessman who was a partner at an advertising firm. Wealthy with a beautiful wife and idyllic life, he was still deeply discontent and corrupt. 

So what’s the problem?

If successful individuals have everything they need and more than they could ever want, what’s the root cause of wanting to distract themselves from it all with drugs, alcohol, porn, food, chasing more money, etc.? 

Just as we don’t have to look far for examples of how success ultimately doesn’t satisfy, we have an answer close at hand for how we can attain true contentment. God spelled out the answer in the Bible! The operating manual that God gave us for our lives, that for some reason many can’t seem to find time to read.

There are many biblical examples of godly people caving to discontentment. When you really think about it, discontentment is often the gateway to sin. Those who aren’t satisfied with who they are and what they have become, or discover what they have been chasing isn’t bringing happiness and contentment, find themselves addicted to “more,” an attitude that can lead to substance abuse, gluttony, breaking promises, cheating, stealing, etc. 

Take King David, for instance. God had blessed him so that he had become one of the wealthiest individuals in all of Scripture. But then one day, when he saw Bathsheeba bathing on her roof, he decided he had to have her even though he knew she was married to someone else. When David later learned that she had become pregnant from their encounter together, David arranged to have her husband killed to try and cover it up. When confronted with his sin, David immediately repented and asked God to forgive him, and God continued to bless David’s life.

This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible for many reasons, but there are two that stand out: 1) it shows that even good or godly people can fall prey to discontentment leading to attempts to fill their lives with desires of the flesh (sex, alcohol, drugs, porn, money, food, etc.) rather than God; and 2) it shows that God has grace for us, even when we fall into sin as a result of trying to fill our lives with the desires of the flesh, if we will repent and seek God and His forgiveness.

To a certain extent, we will never feel 100% content being on this earth, and that is okay. Writer C.S. Lewis described the feeling well when he said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

When you boil it down, we were never made to be fully content on this sinful earth. If we were, we wouldn’t be looking forward to heaven or leaning on God! The right response to that feeling of discontentment and wanting more, which is ingrained in all of us, is to lean on the Lord. I love the way Jesus puts it in John 4:14: “But whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life .” 

Jesus is the only One who can ultimately satisfy our longings! He gives us a purpose that is higher than any earthly calling or vocation, one with eternal implications. But those who believe that their life on earth is all that there is to their existence expend time, money and energy accruing possessions in an attempt to be happy on earth, when at the end of their life, they can’t take it with them. But the good news of a life lived with Christ is that what we do matters because we matter and have inherent worth as children made in the image of God. 

So when you feel like you don’t have enough, even though you really have all you that you truly need, or when you feel discontent even though you’re in a good situation, view those sentiments as signals that you need to look up to heaven instead of straight ahead listening to what your flesh desires, and be thankful for the way God has already blessed your life. We should focus on our Lord rather than ourselves, and trust Him rather than our own abilities. Feelings of discontentment are signs that we need to lean on Jesus and let Him fill our cups to overflowing rather than thinking “I got this--I can do this on my own without God.” He is the only one who can truly satisfy.

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