Divine Discontent by Rev. Dr. Liesa Leggett Garcia

Are you content with your life, or at least with where you are now, with what you’re doing, who your friends and close relationships are? Are you content with your health and your physical body? Are you content with your job or career? Content means we’re in a state of peaceful happiness. We’re satisfied. We’re okay with it, we accept it as it is. It’s a nice feeling to be content.

Now what of “discontent?” This is a sense of dissatisfaction with your life or maybe what’s going on in the world. It can be a restless desire or craving for something that you don’t have. I like to use the term “Divine Discontent” because there’s likely a higher purpose going on than just being unhappy or out of sorts. There’s a nudging from the Divine encouraging us to be or do something differently.

Take our physical health, for instance. If we experience pain somewhere in our body, we realize that something is out of sorts; it’s our body’s way of telling us to pay attention, that help is needed. Pain wants to be noticed. So what do we do? We may call a prayer practitioner, or a doctor; or we can ignore it and hope it goes away. And maybe it will. But if it persists or gets worse, it’s insisting we do something else. The point is, when it’s not something that we can ignore, we do our best to be proactive to make the pain go away so we may return to a healthy, balanced state.

What about when you’re out of sorts and in emotional pain. How might that manifest itself? I can feel crabby, restless, even edgy. I may even take it out on others. When we’re paying attention to our inner signals, we know when something’s wrong. The key is to be aware of it before it turns to anger, rage even, and doing something constructive and helpful when it shows itself. Pain is pain—it’s still telling you something is wrong. Ask yourself what it is you need and fulfill it in a healthy way.

Divine Discontent is not a bad thing. If it were not for it, we would still be back in caves! It’s just a signal, a message from our Higher Wisdom Self. It’s our innate restlessness with the status quo (and willingness to do something about it) that keeps us from being stuck. Thomas Edison said, “Discontent is the first necessity of progress.” So there’s that. It’s a call to do and be something that may be different than this. There is that within us that knows just what to do, and how to do it to move past the pain and discomfort… to a place of peaceful happiness.

Dr. Liesa is the Senior Minister of Center for Spiritual Living, Reno.  She is celebrating 35 years in the ministry.