We experience biblical contentment primarily through our relationships with Christ. Secondarily, it comes from simple things like eating, drinking, and finding joy in our labor. But biblical contentment does not come from riches and possessions.

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Table of contentsHoarding Is a Threat to ContentmentThe Importance of Remembering We Take Nothing With UsLearning from Malcolm Forbes and No FearGodliness with ContentmentHow Can We Experience Biblical Contentment?Biblical Contentment Does not Come from Wealth and PossessionsBiblical Contentment Does Come from Simple ThingsFootnotes

I covered Ecclesiastes 5:11-12 in Being Content from a Missionary Trip to Malawi, Africa. I'm picking up at verse 13.

Hoarding Is a Threat to Contentment

Ecclesiastes 5:13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners.

If I had to write down a list of grievous evils, I’d probably say murder, adultery, hurting children, stealing from the less fortunate. But hoarding probably wouldn’t even make the list. But that’s the grievous evil Solomon had in mind.

Hoarding is so devastating that a reality show fittingly called Hoarders depicts people suffering from a “compulsive hoarding disorder.” The show is a record of people whose lives are ruined by their possessions.

Even if we aren’t hoarders, our possessions can still cause problems because of the time they consume and the choices they create. We have to figure out what to buy, where to get it, how to make the trip to get it, where to store it, where to put the old stuff that the new stuff replaces, and how to use it when we buy it. We bought it; we will make sure we use it to feel like we got our money’s worth.

These choices can consume us, so our possessions start possessing us. We become consumers consumed by our consumption.

They don’t have these problems in Malawi. Most people’s homes don’t have furniture. The floors are dirt. There’s no electricity; say nothing about televisions or the Internet. In Third World countries, the problem is not having enough. But in First World countries like ours, the problem is having too much. Mark Twain once defined civilization as “a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.” 1

Self-storage is one of our biggest industries. An article titled “The Hottest Industry Right Now Is Storing All Your Stuff” reads:

“A day hardly passes without the U.S. retail industry sustaining fresh wounds as malls and outlets shut their doors. Americans are still shopping, though online, in their pajamas and physics dictates that their new stuff, and old stuff, go somewhere. Welcome to the renaissance of self-storage.”

Another article, “Self-storage: How Warehouses for Personal Junk Became a $38 Billion Industry,” reads:

“Despite recessions and demographic shifts, few building types have boomed like self-storage lockers. The self-storage industry made $32.7 billion in 2016, nearly three times Hollywood’s box office gross. Self-storage has seen 7.7 percent annual growth since 2012, and now employs 144,000 nationwide. One in eleven Americans pays an average of $91.14 monthly to use self-storage. The United States has over fifty thousand facilities and roughly 2.31 billion square feet of rentable space. To give that perspective, the volume of self-storage units in the country could “fill the Hoover Dam twenty-six times with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes.”

Our lives are filled to overflowing with possessions. When I drive down the road and pass storage facilities, I wonder, “What’s in the units people don’t need and can’t easily access but still pay money to keep? How many owners are still paying off the credit cards that bought the stuff in the first place?”

The Importance of Remembering We Take Nothing With Us

Ecclesiastes 5:14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand.