My most recent reading conquest was Jeremiah Burroughs's Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. This is a very old book. And a very hard old book. It was given to me by my Uncle Bruce, probably as a result of my incessant complaining about my job, and it's sat on my shelf for about a year. I have a lot of unread books on my shelves, but this was one that kept saying, "Read me. Now. Or else you will start to have dreams in which I fling myself off the shelf and hit you over the head repeatedly."
So. I read it. It's 100 pages but it took me five days, and on one of those days I sat at Hale and Hearty for about four hours and did nothing but read this book. It's a lot of tiny words packed very closely together. Now lest I give the impression that I didn't like this book, let me go ahead and say that I did like it. It was extremely challenging but enlightening. It was just, you know, hard.
Burroughs was a member of the Westminster Assembly and apparently quite a prolific British preacher in the 17th century. He is a well-read theologian, a great reader of Scripture, and kind of a drama queen: "Many times in a family, when any affliction befalls them, Oh, what an amount of discontent is there between man and wife! ... If a man's estate is broken, either by plunderers, or by any other way; how shall this man have contentment? How? By the breaking of his heart. God has broken your estate; Oh seek to Him for the breaking of your heart likewise ... The way of contentment to a carnal heart is only the removing of the affliction. O that it may be gone!" All that in one page. I gather that these are transcripts of sermons he gave, so I kept trying to picture this guy hopping around behind a pulpit, beseeching his listeners to heed his words.
In total, he has some great things to say, plenty that I personally had never thought about before. He talks about how all the blessings we receive are extra good because they come to us from God, and they're free because of what Christ has done: "Wicked men have certain outward things; I do not say they are usurpers of what they have; they have right to it, and that before God, but how? It is a right by mere donation, that is, God by His free bounty gives it to them; but the right that the saints have is a right of purchase: it is paid for, and it is their own, and they may in a holy manner and holy way claim whatever they have need of." Great point. I really appreciated all his points about the way a believer should receive a blessing as opposed to the way a non-believer does.
The last third of the book is spent denouncing a "murmuring spirit" and any other attitude that demonstrates the opposite of contentment. This section was a little harder to get through because it was so negative (by necessity) and because it was so convicting. I have a humungous guilt complex, so it's hard for me to read something like that and filter what the Spirit is saying from what my excessively guilty conscience is saying. So I don't know that I took a lot of value from that section just because of my own sinful tendencies, but there was a lot there. For a bit gentler take on what a Christian's attitude during suffering should be, any of Philip Yancey's books are a good pick.
I don't think I'm a particularly content person. I try to be, but I don't like this world. I think it's a lousy place with a lot of bright spots. "If I discover within me a longing that no experience in this world can satisfy, then the most probable reason is that I was made for another world." C. S. Lewis. Not to say we shouldn't work on being content here, but I think my discontent is a piece of heaven that's stuck inside me and won't come out until I'm there.
Song In My Head: "Another Time, Another Place" - Sandi Patty and Wayne Watson. Can someone current please cover this song??
An Oscar Afterthought:
I take credit for calling 5 out of 6, because I gave Kate Winslet and Anne Hathaway both 5 stars even though I said Hathaway would win. I just liked Rachel Getting Married a lot and really wanted it to win something. But Winslet's performance was brilliant and she was long overdue, so that was a well-deserved win. And her speech was great. I don't get Penelope Cruz winning, but I guess she's been deserving of an Oscar for a while now, too. I thought the ceremony was one of the best in years, which isn't saying much but is saying something. Hugh Jackman was better than any of the comedians that have recently hosted, and his opening number was actually entertaining. (The medley of musicals later on with Beyonce and the High School Musical kids? Not so much.) The tributes to the nominees by past winners were wonderful, and definitely something that should be done every year. The Slumdog kids were sooo cute. And my favorite moment, naturally, was Heath Ledger's family accepting his Oscar. We miss you Heath, but what a way to go.
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