Facebook keeps showing me ads for snake boots. Boots made to repel snakes. Not boots made of snakes.
The locals call my hill Rattlesnake Hill. I’ve never seen a rattlesnake. Yet. Only a few friendly fanged varieties.
I’ve never searched for snake boots. I’ve never pinned my home with a rattlesnake tag in Google.
Yet Facebook’s science figured I’m a candidate for protection since I live where I live and use “Y’all.” Now I’m spending evenings raising my anxiety by surfing boots I never knew I needed.
Every day brings a new snake boot.
A pasta maker even though I don’t eat pasta. A golf shirt even though I already have 20. (Yes. I know.) A new spouse more loving and sexy and understanding and fantasy-fulfilling.
Satan fans our flames of discontent. Of fear. Anxiety. Envy and jealousy.
Anything to create dissatisfaction with the hill we live on. The stuff in our closet. The spouse in our bed.
Discontent is as old as the hills.
The Bible offers this equally old secret: I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Christ who gives me strength. (Philippians 4.12,13)
It’s not that boots are unnecessary. Or a fulfilling marriage only the stuff of dreams.
It’s that knowing Jesus knows you, has claimed you, and loves you…pushes out the dissatisfaction sown by Satan.
He gives you strength for your reality rather than transport you out of your reality. He gives you grace for people and thanksgiving for stuff.
He gives you a heart that rests in Him.
He’s your source of contentment. Even if He also made rattlesnakes.