Are you Content with Less?

The purpose of Nature is the advancement and unfoldment of life; and every man should have all that can contribute to the power; elegance, beauty, and richness of life; to be content with less is sinful.
 Wallace D. Wattles

My husband showed me this quote the other day from a book he has been reading. When I read it, of course I thought how powerful the sentences were and thanked him for the shared knowledge. However, after he left the room to continue his reading, I began to meditate on these words: “to be content with less is sinful.”

Like a popcorn machine, my mind got heated with so many questions popping out everywhere: What does that even mean? Why would anyone be content with less in the first place? These two words do not have their place together. Because according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, to be content means to be “in a state of peaceful happiness,” and less means to have “a smaller amount of.” Therefore, I imagined that for many people, the thought to be in a state of peaceful happiness with a small amount of anything is ludicrous and definitely sinful.

As human beings, we always want more; it is in our nature to seek higher grounds than where we are. God wants us to possess “all that can contribute to the power; elegance, beauty, and richness of life”. Deuteronomy 8:18 says “You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” We should never accept less in our life and certainly never be content with it, but we ought to be grateful with what we have.

To say all that, no matter where we are in life, we should always strive to aim higher. When we defy ourselves to become stronger and better all the time we remain in the game of life. When we stop moving, when we stop aiming, when we stop wanting, we reach our end and become content with less.

©2012 Natacha Michel