Great Gain

Between the two ends of your life stand two doors, and nothing goes through either of them. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

Contentment is the word to stay with. Behind it is a term the philosophers of that world used for a person who needs nothing brought in from outside, sufficient in himself. Paul had used its adjective about himself: I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. Learned. It arrived late and it arrived by instruction, which is worth knowing if you have been treating the absence of it as a defect of character.

The sentence is answering somebody. A few lines up are men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness, running religion as a trade. Paul takes their word off them and gives it back with the terms reversed: godliness with contentment is great gain.

Then he prints the floor, and it is startlingly low. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. Hebrews grounds the same thing on a sentence rather than on a temperament: be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

That is the promise the contentment stands on, and it says nothing about the amount growing or the wanting stopping. The one who cannot be carried out through the far door is already on your side of it. He has said so, and he does not leave.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 168 is This Is the Way (Isaiah 30:21).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two