When we lived in St. Louis I followed the St. Louis Blues hockey team. I had never been exposed to hockey and was trying to learn the rules to the game and the offensive and defensive strategies the teams employed. The local sports talking heads described the Blues offensive attack as “dump and chase,” which I understood to mean the players shot the puck deep into the offensive zone and chased it. I’m sure it was a little more complicated than that.
I thought about the Blues and their dump and chase offense as I prepared last week’s sermon. In the context of contentment, Paul instructed Timothy that there were things he needed to flee from (dump) and things he needed to pursue (chase).
But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness (1 Timothy 6:9-11, NLT).
Contentment is not singularly a material problem. Its a spiritual one. The desires that captivate us are to be resisted, but resistance alone will not help us develop contentment. We have to pursue the right stuff in order to obtain the goal.