Contentment Without Ambition
We all want God’s blessings, so what does God have in store for you? Seele Contributor Hazzy Redgard unpacks what we can learn from the blessings that the tribe of Issachar received…
“Issachar is a scrawny donkey lying down among the sheep pens. When he sees how good is his resting place and how pleasant is his land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and submit to forced labour.”
The Hebrew word for scrawny is gerem, which means strong – strangely, Jacob isn’t calling Issachar small and weak, he is calling him strong. This means he is powerful, hardworking and capable of carrying heavy loads. Within their inheritance, Issachar inherited the Jezreel Valley which had extremely fertile soil (Joshua 19:17-23). This led them to have agricultural prosperity.
Issachar used their strength to work hard within agriculture, but that’s all they did. With the strength they had they could’ve done a lot more. They could have been a ruling tribe, but instead they settled and chose to be comfortable with just being great farmers. They were so content with their life of farming that they submitted to Canaanite influence and Midianite raids. If they had put more focus on political dominance and focused as well on being a leading tribe, then foreigners wouldn’t have had as much control over them.
Issachar’s desire for comfort stopped them from doing great things – they could’ve done so much more but they decided to submit rather than dominate, and this is a shame. Their problem was contentment without ambition. Issachar’s love for comfort stopped them from living up to their full potential.
Imagine you have the perfect life, the perfect job, and the perfect home because you worked really hard to get what you have. It’s the kind of life where you don’t ned anything more, and every so often, someone breaks into your house to steal stuff. Would you allow that to happen? Would you put in the effort to fight them off? Would you put in the effort to make your home more secure? This is similar to what happened with Issachar, they were content with what they had and didn’t want any more, and they submitted to people raiding them and controlling them.
I don’t want that to be me. I love comfort, like a lot. I would rather chill than work hard. I would rather be broke and have more time off than go to work every day. Having fertile land and agriculture and always being fruitful is cushty. Issachar was able to make money quite easily – they worked hard but they didn’t push themselves.
Do you push yourself or do you just show up? Are you like Issachar? Issachar was a 5-talent tribe but they settled for less (Matthew 25:14-30). How big are your dreams? Do you have 5- talent dreams or do you want to settle with the bare minimum? God gives 5-talent dreams to 5-talent people. Issachar pushing themselves would’ve looked like perusing political dominance as well as farming.
What can you do alongside what you’re already doing? Where can you grow and be more fruitful? God wants you to push and work hard to achieve as much as you possibly can. What’s your mentality? Striving for more? Or contentment without ambition?
TRENDING
