Today's post was written by BH member, Leandrea Stouffer, and it is being reposted with permission from her blog.

I was at a conference a few weeks ago when I felt like the speaker was speaking directly to me when he said, “In all your pleasures Jesus is better; in all your suffering Christ is enough.” I sat there for a second dumbfounded. I thought, “How could I have been so blinded by my circumstances that I had forgotten this simple truth?”

There are times in my life that light bulbs go off, and this was one of those moments. Over the past few months, I have let my joy be driven by what I was going through. I had let my job warp my attitude. I had let my relationship status drive me crazy. I had let silliness of drama between friends overpower me, and I had let school discourage me. When I looked at the temporary circumstances of my life, I had no joy.

This in itself brought me to this light bulb moment, while I was sitting in the cold auditorium hanging on every word the speaker was saying. I was chasing contentment through my circumstances and not Jesus. The truth of the matter is that our circumstances are attached to the fallen world. Therefore, we should not base our joy and contentment in life on the things going on in our life. Our joy needs to be based on Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, rose again, and gives us eternal hope and life. Because of the power of Christ, we can face anything that comes our way. My problem had become that I had been trying to find contentment by looking for contentment. In reality, you find contentment when you seek the Lord.

We as Christ-followers have to learn to lean upon the Lord for our contentment during the good, bad, and in between. It’s amazing that I forget so easily, that not only in our sufferings Christ is enough, but also in my pleasures, Jesus is better. If all of my circumstances resolved, I would still need to base my joy not on the temporary, but the eternal. Paul tells us in Philippians to “Rejoice always.” Always means always, no matter the circumstances.

I have so many reasons to be content in Christ, so the real question is why am I not content? Or the question you might be asking yourself is why do I strive to be content, but continuously falter? The answer to is sin. Sin blinds us from the truth. It is what separates us from God. Therefore, we need to take the time to search our hearts, seek the Lord, and trust that we can be content no matter what comes our way.

So I leave you with these wise words that bore into my heart: “In all your pleasures Jesus in better; in all your sufferings, Christ is enough.” -Tony Merida