August 5, 2025 • 11 mins
The hardest thing to teach a child is contentment. We don't want to kill their curiosity, but a failure to learn contentment is destructive. We are living in a world that tries to lure our discontentment into dissent, and if left unchecked it destroys us. Today we discuss the issue of contentment and peace and the how understanding Jesus, and ourself is required to building a heart of gratitude.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ethan (00:01):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
This is raising joyful childrenin an angry world.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
Today I want to talk aboutcontentment.
One of the hardest things tolearn that St.
Paul called I've learned to becontent in all things.
(00:24):
You know, I just spent, oh,probably a week and a half with
my grandkids and had a number ofthem here at the house, couple
of the grandsons.
And the, and the thing aboutraising kids, it's, it's not
like a cheesecake recipe, right?
Where you just follow theseingredients, bake it the right
amount of time, at the righttemperature, and it comes out
just right.
No.
When you're with kids, theselessons, they gotta be repeated
(00:47):
and repeated and repeated.
And one of the hardest things toteach is contentment.
And yet it is the most supervaluable thing in the kingdom.
In Dante's Divine Comedy wherehe is speaking about the inferno
section, his poet poem, we couldcall it on, on what hell is, he
(01:08):
reserves the worst part.
He describes the worst part forthe dissenters.
Why?
Well, it has to do with hispersonal loss.
In the Civil War of Florencewhere he was exiled and the
blood that came on the streetsfrom that almost every
revolution that you look atthat's destructive to society.
(01:28):
I just came back from Panama.
You see it, you start with thefields of discontent and then.
You build that into therebellious descent.
I'm reading a book called OathBreakers.
It's about all of the families,the brothers, the sons of King
Charlemagne in the eighthcentury, and they get into this
(01:48):
bloody civil war as.
All of the sons are discontentwith their role and they want
the throne.
This is, this is something thatstarts in this issue of
contentment because discontentis vulnerable to the
indoctrination of the dissentersthat are constantly sending
(02:11):
their messages of dissension,which often leads to chaos and
wreckage of lives in the worldthat's out there.
You you often see it.
Not just in a child, but you'llsee this in an adult, right?
The child that's given somethingand then they're suddenly
discontent with it and theywanna know what the next thing
is.
The next thing is, and the nextthing is just went through this
(02:33):
and you see this, if you don'tlearn it, all of a sudden you're
that man, right?
You, you got this great job.
And then after you're there acouple of years.
Eh, I'm not content.
I'm not happy here.
And you go to the next one andthe next one, and then it
becomes the next wife or thenext husband, and then it's the
(02:53):
next family.
This issue of of not being ableto find contentment and peace,
it's not just in the bloodydivisive civil wars and the
collapses of empires, but italso is.
Collapses of family and evendestructive in our personal
(03:14):
life.
And so I, I wanna point this out'cause I think this is something
that is so important and yet we,we tend not to get there.
We, we tend to miss this otherthan our frustration of, well, I
just gave you this thing to doand all, you're already bored
with it.
Well, how do we, how do weinstruct this?
(03:35):
Where does, where do we get thewisdom to try and pass this
down?
And I would point you to thecatechism, particularly to
Heidelberg, where it says thethree things that I must know
that I am a great sinner, thatChrist is a great savior, and
that I must live now ingratitude to him.
(03:55):
There's no way to get theattitude of gratitude that many
people talk about without havinga savior to be grateful to a
reason, a, a and awareness, arecognition of what the Savior
did.
And why you needed the savior todo it.
(04:19):
In other words, you just can'thave this, like, we, we were on
this boat and they were singingthis song.
I'm blessed.
I am blessed.
From the time I wake up, till Ilay my head down at rest, I am
blessed.
It's just sort of ambiguous,fuzzy, good feeling.
I'm grateful for all the thingsthat I have.
That isn't gonna get you there.
(04:40):
That's a worldly understanding.
No.
The thing that we need to teachis we have to help kids
understand what is sin, what ishuman failure to live up to just
simple things like kindness andsharing and being content, and
then discover why we can't do itbecause of our sinful nature.
(05:03):
That's why we need Jesus toforgive us and then restore in
us and come live in us and startbuilding in us and in our heart.
This issue of gratitude and lovetowards him.
And it takes the Holy Spirit.
Don't get me wrong, the HolySpirit and God has to do this
work, but we have aresponsibility to teach it.
So it starts with something inmost catechisms, whether.
(05:26):
You know, you wanna talk aboutthe Heidelberg, Westminster
Luther Shorter Catechism.
Those catechisms teach thisconcept.
The gratitude is based onrecognition of, of our human
failure, our human sinfulness,and the great savior of who
Jesus is.
Now we have a person.
That we're gonna be grateful toa God that we can thank.
(05:48):
This is why the practice ofprayer and the practice of these
things that we say areimportant.
When we see our sin and God'sprovision of grace, we get a
different view then of the worldand of providence.
We now have an idea.
Well, if God provided me thegrace of, forgive me my sins.
He's now providing everythingelse, and now I've gotta have
(06:12):
this attitude towards gratitudebecause I see it's all of life
is on the providence of God.
Yes.
I still have to work hard andtry to achieve.
Yes.
I still have to want to getbetter grades to improve
whatever sport I'm chasing ormusic, whatever it is that
you're doing.
But lots of people work hard anddon't get a blessing.
(06:34):
So the first part of the answer,I think in teaching this has to
be helping our kids see this.
And this is, this is one of thethings I think we have to point
out.
When you aren't being grateful,when you're just, this
discontent is coming up, youhave to see this and say, look,
this is a sin.
(06:54):
This is displeasing to God, andyou need to confess this, and
you need to ask God to help youwith it.
See it isn't, it isn'tcondemning the child, but it is
helping the child realize youneed somebody outside of you to
help you achieve this thing ofgratitude.
You can't do this on your own.
(07:15):
The law is there to drive us tothe savior, but we're in a
culture and sometimes, franklyin a church in which we, we
really just sort of skip overthis.
It's like some annuity.
Oh yeah, it's all gonna bewashed away.
And when you die, you go toheaven.
Now let's get in and talk aboutyour best life now, and we don't
(07:37):
get into this issue of I'm agreat sinner.
Christ is a great savior.
Now I live in gratitude.
The second thing I would suggestis, is some stories.
I'm a big believer that storiesin help us see the world better.
God is a God of words.
He's also a God who has storyafter story.
(07:59):
The Prodigal Son is a story ofwanting my treasure now a lack
of contentment.
The story of the Hebrewscomplaining in the desert after
being set free from theirslavery in Egypt.
Is a story about a lack ofcontentment.
Then there's stories like TheAlchemist.
These are outside the scripture,but they align with the
(08:21):
scripture.
You may not be familiar with it,it's an old story, but Santiago
is a Spanish Shepherd builds upthis huge herd of sheep.
He has this prosperous, sheepand herding business, and he's
selling the wool.
And then he hears about analchemist, a way that you can
make gold from like commonmaterials like sand and rocks,
(08:42):
sells all the sheep, starts hisjourney to find his personal
legend.
And he's, and it's filled withrobbery and betrayal and, you
know, just one thing after theother gets, gets messed up as he
finally, eventually meets analchemist Won't even tell him
the secret to making gold,because why should I, I know how
(09:04):
to do it.
Why should I tell you?
It's sort of a strange story,but, but the point of it is, is
that his discontent eventuallyleads him all the way back to
Spain, and he goes right back tofinally.
Building the herd and going backto what he should have been
content with in the first place.
These are the kind of stories wehave to bring to life, help our
(09:26):
kids see this and to picturethis.
And these are also the storiesof the scripture.
If, if you don't learncontentment, if you don't even
have the concept of what it isand you reach into an adulthood,
you're gonna become that personthat's always chasing the next,
the next, the next, the next.
And, and it leaves a, awhirlwind of often broken
(09:47):
relationships and destructivepatterns behind it.
And that's what we're trying toavoid.
Teach your kids to pray, to givethanks for things, to be
thankful for people that are intheir lives.
And it's not just saying thankyou and please as a way to get
stuff, but it's actually a heartthing to actually work with the
(10:10):
Holy Spirit to get that heart toa place of gratitude.
And frankly, no matter how oldyou are, you, you never really
learn this.
But hopefully, hopefully you getbetter and better and you see it
and you recognize it becausecontentment when mixed with,
with providence leads to peaceand discontent mixed with
(10:35):
dissent.
Leads to war.
Paul (10:39):
The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight
for identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Paul (2) (10:52):
Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is
the Kingdom of Heaven.
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture
This is raising joyful childrenin an angry world.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
Today I want to talk aboutcontentment.
One of the hardest things tolearn that St.
Paul called I've learned to becontent in all things.
(00:24):
You know, I just spent, oh,probably a week and a half with
my grandkids and had a number ofthem here at the house, couple
of the grandsons.
And the, and the thing aboutraising kids, it's, it's not
like a cheesecake recipe, right?
Where you just follow theseingredients, bake it the right
amount of time, at the righttemperature, and it comes out
just right.
No.
When you're with kids, theselessons, they gotta be repeated
(00:47):
and repeated and repeated.
And one of the hardest things toteach is contentment.
And yet it is the most supervaluable thing in the kingdom.
In Dante's Divine Comedy wherehe is speaking about the inferno
section, his poet poem, we couldcall it on, on what hell is, he
(01:08):
reserves the worst part.
He describes the worst part forthe dissenters.
Why?
Well, it has to do with hispersonal loss.
In the Civil War of Florencewhere he was exiled and the
blood that came on the streetsfrom that almost every
revolution that you look atthat's destructive to society.
(01:28):
I just came back from Panama.
You see it, you start with thefields of discontent and then.
You build that into therebellious descent.
I'm reading a book called OathBreakers.
It's about all of the families,the brothers, the sons of King
Charlemagne in the eighthcentury, and they get into this
(01:48):
bloody civil war as.
All of the sons are discontentwith their role and they want
the throne.
This is, this is something thatstarts in this issue of
contentment because discontentis vulnerable to the
indoctrination of the dissentersthat are constantly sending
(02:11):
their messages of dissension,which often leads to chaos and
wreckage of lives in the worldthat's out there.
You you often see it.
Not just in a child, but you'llsee this in an adult, right?
The child that's given somethingand then they're suddenly
discontent with it and theywanna know what the next thing
is.
The next thing is, and the nextthing is just went through this
(02:33):
and you see this, if you don'tlearn it, all of a sudden you're
that man, right?
You, you got this great job.
And then after you're there acouple of years.
Eh, I'm not content.
I'm not happy here.
And you go to the next one andthe next one, and then it
becomes the next wife or thenext husband, and then it's the
(02:53):
next family.
This issue of of not being ableto find contentment and peace,
it's not just in the bloodydivisive civil wars and the
collapses of empires, but italso is.
Collapses of family and evendestructive in our personal
(03:14):
life.
And so I, I wanna point this out'cause I think this is something
that is so important and yet we,we tend not to get there.
We, we tend to miss this otherthan our frustration of, well, I
just gave you this thing to doand all, you're already bored
with it.
Well, how do we, how do weinstruct this?
(03:35):
Where does, where do we get thewisdom to try and pass this
down?
And I would point you to thecatechism, particularly to
Heidelberg, where it says thethree things that I must know
that I am a great sinner, thatChrist is a great savior, and
that I must live now ingratitude to him.
(03:55):
There's no way to get theattitude of gratitude that many
people talk about without havinga savior to be grateful to a
reason, a, a and awareness, arecognition of what the Savior
did.
And why you needed the savior todo it.
(04:19):
In other words, you just can'thave this, like, we, we were on
this boat and they were singingthis song.
I'm blessed.
I am blessed.
From the time I wake up, till Ilay my head down at rest, I am
blessed.
It's just sort of ambiguous,fuzzy, good feeling.
I'm grateful for all the thingsthat I have.
That isn't gonna get you there.
(04:40):
That's a worldly understanding.
No.
The thing that we need to teachis we have to help kids
understand what is sin, what ishuman failure to live up to just
simple things like kindness andsharing and being content, and
then discover why we can't do itbecause of our sinful nature.
(05:03):
That's why we need Jesus toforgive us and then restore in
us and come live in us and startbuilding in us and in our heart.
This issue of gratitude and lovetowards him.
And it takes the Holy Spirit.
Don't get me wrong, the HolySpirit and God has to do this
work, but we have aresponsibility to teach it.
So it starts with something inmost catechisms, whether.
(05:26):
You know, you wanna talk aboutthe Heidelberg, Westminster
Luther Shorter Catechism.
Those catechisms teach thisconcept.
The gratitude is based onrecognition of, of our human
failure, our human sinfulness,and the great savior of who
Jesus is.
Now we have a person.
That we're gonna be grateful toa God that we can thank.
(05:48):
This is why the practice ofprayer and the practice of these
things that we say areimportant.
When we see our sin and God'sprovision of grace, we get a
different view then of the worldand of providence.
We now have an idea.
Well, if God provided me thegrace of, forgive me my sins.
He's now providing everythingelse, and now I've gotta have
(06:12):
this attitude towards gratitudebecause I see it's all of life
is on the providence of God.
Yes.
I still have to work hard andtry to achieve.
Yes.
I still have to want to getbetter grades to improve
whatever sport I'm chasing ormusic, whatever it is that
you're doing.
But lots of people work hard anddon't get a blessing.
(06:34):
So the first part of the answer,I think in teaching this has to
be helping our kids see this.
And this is, this is one of thethings I think we have to point
out.
When you aren't being grateful,when you're just, this
discontent is coming up, youhave to see this and say, look,
this is a sin.
(06:54):
This is displeasing to God, andyou need to confess this, and
you need to ask God to help youwith it.
See it isn't, it isn'tcondemning the child, but it is
helping the child realize youneed somebody outside of you to
help you achieve this thing ofgratitude.
You can't do this on your own.
(07:15):
The law is there to drive us tothe savior, but we're in a
culture and sometimes, franklyin a church in which we, we
really just sort of skip overthis.
It's like some annuity.
Oh yeah, it's all gonna bewashed away.
And when you die, you go toheaven.
Now let's get in and talk aboutyour best life now, and we don't
(07:37):
get into this issue of I'm agreat sinner.
Christ is a great savior.
Now I live in gratitude.
The second thing I would suggestis, is some stories.
I'm a big believer that storiesin help us see the world better.
God is a God of words.
He's also a God who has storyafter story.
(07:59):
The Prodigal Son is a story ofwanting my treasure now a lack
of contentment.
The story of the Hebrewscomplaining in the desert after
being set free from theirslavery in Egypt.
Is a story about a lack ofcontentment.
Then there's stories like TheAlchemist.
These are outside the scripture,but they align with the
(08:21):
scripture.
You may not be familiar with it,it's an old story, but Santiago
is a Spanish Shepherd builds upthis huge herd of sheep.
He has this prosperous, sheepand herding business, and he's
selling the wool.
And then he hears about analchemist, a way that you can
make gold from like commonmaterials like sand and rocks,
(08:42):
sells all the sheep, starts hisjourney to find his personal
legend.
And he's, and it's filled withrobbery and betrayal and, you
know, just one thing after theother gets, gets messed up as he
finally, eventually meets analchemist Won't even tell him
the secret to making gold,because why should I, I know how
(09:04):
to do it.
Why should I tell you?
It's sort of a strange story,but, but the point of it is, is
that his discontent eventuallyleads him all the way back to
Spain, and he goes right back tofinally.
Building the herd and going backto what he should have been
content with in the first place.
These are the kind of stories wehave to bring to life, help our
(09:26):
kids see this and to picturethis.
And these are also the storiesof the scripture.
If, if you don't learncontentment, if you don't even
have the concept of what it isand you reach into an adulthood,
you're gonna become that personthat's always chasing the next,
the next, the next, the next.
And, and it leaves a, awhirlwind of often broken
(09:47):
relationships and destructivepatterns behind it.
And that's what we're trying toavoid.
Teach your kids to pray, to givethanks for things, to be
thankful for people that are intheir lives.
And it's not just saying thankyou and please as a way to get
stuff, but it's actually a heartthing to actually work with the
(10:10):
Holy Spirit to get that heart toa place of gratitude.
And frankly, no matter how oldyou are, you, you never really
learn this.
But hopefully, hopefully you getbetter and better and you see it
and you recognize it becausecontentment when mixed with,
with providence leads to peaceand discontent mixed with
(10:35):
dissent.
Leads to war.
Paul (10:39):
The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight
for identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Paul (2) (10:52):
Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is
the Kingdom of Heaven.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.