Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let our affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand...Simplify, simplify!

Isn't it natural that I should belittle all the things I can't offer you?

Beneath our questions about God's generosity and his care for our needs is something darker. What we really care about is our wants.

But the point is that we live in a culture that idolizes happiness, and if we idolize happiness, it will always elude us.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory.

Lord, make my way prosperous, not that I achieve high station, but that my life may be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.

However much human ingenuity may increase the treasures which nature provides for the satisfaction of human needs, they can never be sufficient to satisfy all human wants; for man, unlike other creatures, is gifted and cursed with an imagination which extends his appetites beyond the requirements of subsistence. Human

If God be not enough for you, you will never have enough. Turn to him more, and know him better, if you would have a satisfied mind. -Directions Against Sinful Desires and Discontent.

I am persuaded our discontents, and murmurings with out unpleasing condition, and our covetous desires after more, are not so provoking to God, nor so destructive to the sinner, as our too sweet enjoying, and rest of spirit in a pleasing state. . . . Our rest is our heaven, and where we take our rest, there we make our heaven(457).

God has made us His children. None of us deserves this, so there is no need to compare our blessings with those of other children of God. Jealousy is self-centeredness at its worst. It robs us of joy and chokes out contentment. It hardens the heart and stifles gratitude.

6Now godliness with econtentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into this world, 4and it is fcertain we can carry nothing out. 8And having food and clothing, with these we shall be gcontent.