Read Philippians 4:11

Someday when the kids are grown, things are going to be a lot different. The garage won’t be full of bikes, unfinished “experimental school projects,” and the rabbit cage. I’ll be able to park both cars neatly in just the right places, and never again stumble over skateboards.

Someday when the kids are grown, my lovely wife will actually have time to get dressed leisurely. A long, hot bath without interruptions, time to do her nails without answering a dozen questions and reviewing spelling words, having had her hair done that afternoon without trying to squeeze it in between racing a sick dog to the vet and a trip to the orthodontist with a kid in a bad mood because she lost her retainer...again!

Someday when the kids are grown, the instrument called a “telephone” will actually be available. It won’t look like it’s growing from a teenager’s ear. It will simply be there...silently and amazingly available!

Now that I’m in my eighth decade of life, it’s the official someday. The kids are now grown, and my grandkids and great-grandkids are now bumping around our place. Over time, we have learned to view things we once viewed as inconveniences as all part of God’s sovereign design to bring about God’s gracious plan.

Contentment cannot be mustered. It’s learned on the anvil of living. Could it be that the Apostle Paul had some of this in mind when he wrote:

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. (Philippians 4:11)

Maybe so. But then again, chances are good Paul never had to clean up many dog messes. Yet the point is that contentment is learned over the process of time—as we live through the tough and often unexpected seasons of life. By the time we get to our someday, we ought to be at peace each day with what God has provided today.

Don’t miss the blessing of today waiting for that elusive someday.

Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord...Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.

The full devotional can be purchased at https://www.tyndale.com/p/good-morning-lord-can-we-talk/9781414380681.