A beggar standing on a street corner commented to his friends, “If only I had a hundred dollars, I would never complain again.” A businessman walking by overheard his statement and interrupted the conversation.

            “Excuse me,” the man said. “Did you say if you had a hundred dollars, you would never complain again?”

            The beggar replied, “You heard right, mister.”

            The man pulled out his wallet, handed him a hundred dollars, and said, “I’m glad I can have a small part in bringing happiness to the world.”

            After the man walked away, the beggar turned to his friends and remarked, “I wish I had asked for two hundred dollars!”

            When we become discontented, we’re not satisfied by what we receive because our problem is internal.

[Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 25]

In the 1800’s a prospector went to California in search of his fortune. He spent his entire life scouring the mountains for gold, only to die as a pauper. When they were digging the grave behind his house to bury him . . . do I really need to finish the story?

Sometimes the gold we’re searching for is located in our own backyard. We don’t need to search the world over to find happiness. We simply need to follow wherever the Shepherd leads and then lie down and rest in God’s will.

(Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 29)

      A man in the desert was craving something to drink and saw a lemonade stand on the next sand dune.  He ran to it, but when he arrived, the lemonade stand disappeared and reappeared on the next sand dune.  When he ran to the next sand dune and grabbed for the lemonade, it disappeared and reappeared again on the next dune.  He continued to chase it from dune to dune until he died of thirst.  He was only chasing a mirage. Discontentment is a mirage that leads us on an endless chase and never satisfies our thirst. (Kent Crockett, The 911 Handbook, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003, 24)

Discontentment points us to a place where God isn’t leading.

[Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 26]

Discontentment always searches for the nearest exit sign.

[Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 22]