The Friday Five (6.19.26)
A Few Things for My Friends
Hey! Every week, I share five things to encourage and equip in daily life with God.
This week:
Learning the Secret of Contentment
The Food I Need
Don’t Let Envy Poison Your Soul | Daniel Darling
A Journey into Joy | Trevor Hudson
Augustine and the Power of Habit | Mere Orthodoxy
Enjoy!
MK
⬇️ Check out my book on Spiritual Disciplines! ⬇️
Read the forward from Jen Wilkin | Grab a copy here | Here’s a Discussion Guide
1. Learning the Secret of Contentment
Last weekend, I preached through Philippians 4:10-20, and the secret of contentment. Studying for this sermon put me through the wringer, and I am grateful for it. I had to repent again and again as I looked hard at where discontentment, comparison, and envy draw my eyes off of Christ as my ultimate treasure. I am so thankful for the grace that calls us forward and into joy.
Hear what Paul learned and how we can treasure Christ rightly.
2. The Food I Need
I have prayed this verse for years. In the fight against discontentment, envy, or comparison - this has been a helpful anchor to trust God’s providential hand in my life.
7 Two things I ask of you; don’t deny them to me before I die:
8 Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me.
Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need.
9 Otherwise, I might have too much and deny you, saying, “Who is the Lord?”
or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.Christian Standard Bible , Proverbs 30:7–8.
Feed me with the food that I need, not what I think I need. Keep me, Lord.
3. Don’t Let Envy Poison Your Soul
Daniel Darling has a word that fits in line with the first two items for the week, with his article Don’t Let Envy Poison Your Soul.
Envy is an insidious temptation from the enemy. It’s how the serpent convinced Eve to rebel against God. He’s holding out on you. You deserve more. What you have is not enough. This isn’t right.
Envy comes for all of us. We have to fight it every day. No matter how much success you have in ministry, in the marketplace, or in society, you will always be able to look around and see someone doing better than you. Another family at church or school will have a nicer car and a vacation home while you struggle with multiple side-hustles to make it all work. Another peer will get a promotion or acclaim that you feel you should get. Another businessman will be offered deals that didn’t come your way.
Read the rest here.
4. A Journey into Joy
Trevor Hudson writes how he shared with Dallas Willard that he struggled to accept that “God is the most joyous being in the universe,” which Dallas wrote in The Divine Conspiracy.
Dallas responded with the question, “Trevor, if your God gloomy?”
When you read Trevor’s response, pay attention. You can hear how his context shaped his perception of God’s demeanor. Growing up in South Africa during Apartheid, witness to extreme suffering, and with a disposition that lent itself toward discontent, Trevor’s view of God was contextually biographical, meaning how he viewed God made sense in light of his story and surrounding - until he was met with a challenge from Dallas to look at things differently. Trevor would tell you that was the beginning of his Journey Into Joy.
I’ll let him tell you the rest, and you should read it. Take a moment after to consider how your theology tells you about your history: what you’ve lived through, where you came from, and what story you’ve told yourself to make sense of it all. Taking these narratives and holding them up to the God of the Scriptures is one of the most important works of our lives: to be confronted with Truth and restoried into joy.
Thanks for sharing this, Trevor. It was deeply encouraging.
5. Augustine and the Power of Habit
Marc Sims has a piece over at Mere Orthodoxy that I found really interesting. If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in sinful patterns and wondered how to fight your way out, read about Augustine’s struggle.
The power of habit in the Christian life is not to be ignored. In an age of authenticity, we want things to be spontaneous to feel genuine, but habits carve the grooves for the attention of our heart to follow. The thing to keep central is that the habits are pulled forward by beauty - we need a divine and supernatural light to give us a new will, to show us Christ is who really longed for all along.
Sims writes:
If you find yourself locked into a destructive cycle of habits that are choking your faith and ruining your life, then take stock of what external influences are shaping your life. Mere thought alone will not win. Use your body and your environment to help replace sinful habits with righteous ones.
But Christianity is not just a religious flavor of Atomic Habits. Our great hope is that we are not alone. As we seek to change our life, we beseech our Lord for help to give us new desires, new minds, new wills. Augustine’s great “aha” moment was when he was able to see that what he was looking for in lust, he could find in Christ: “You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.”
_____
For the ones who dig into this on a deeper level: I’ve been thinking through role of habit in the Christian life for a long time now. I’m deeply interested in what impacts and shapes the type of people we become, because I think the thing we get to offer Jesus when we meet him is the person we’ve become - renewed and conformed to his image. Therefore structuring what we repeatedly do to influence who we are as a way of being is of paramount importance. This reads to me as Augustine and Aristotle as Aquinas synthesizes them.
In my Edwards studies, the role of habit gives way to the importance of sight: that when we see Christ by grace, we will be drawn by our affection for him and that impacts our will (choices), which is upstream from habits. I’ve read one journal article that spoke to the possibility for the role of habit in Edwards theology of sanctification.
If any of that piqued your interest or you have thoughts for me, let me know! Enjoy Marc’s article. I did.
BONUS :
This week, I was with our High School camp in Estes Park, Colorado at the YMCA of the Rockies. I took a hike one afternoon to process my sermon thoughts for this weekend, and got onto a riverside trail for a few miles. On my way back toward the camp, I was lost in thought when I noticed an animal about 20 feet ahead, right off the trail to my left - between me and the river. I quietly moved to a different trail and put some distance between us before I took this video. I was on the trail right by the sign in the video. I would have walked right into him!
Elk are my favorite animal - and this guy was huge! I stood there for 20 minutes, just watching him and waiting for him to move. I couldn’t believe I was so close, and he was so beautiful. It felt like a personal gift from The Lord, because for some reason I felt so cared for and seen that I got to witness this beautiful creature that means so much to me. It made my week!
Thanks for Reading
If someone forwarded this to you, I write two kinds of emails: one on select Tuesdays about life with God and the other every Friday, where I share things I’ve found during the week. If you want to subscribe but can’t afford it, email me, and I’ll take care of it—no questions asked.
I pastor, teach, and lead at The Village Church, serving as an Elder and the Executive Director of Discipleship. In my spare time (ha!), I’m working on a Ph.D. in Church History, studying Jonathan Edwards and character formation. Also, I’ve written A Short Guide to Spiritual Disciplines: How to Become a Healthy Christian.
Thank you for reading and supporting my work as I seek to shepherd with compassion and wisdom, equipping people to embody God’s truth for all of life.
Talk soon,
Mason