The Discontented Man

C H. Spurgeon.

1 Kings 21:2-16

And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near to my house…

A contented man may have enough, but a discontented man never can; his heart is like the Slough of Despond into which thousands of waggon loads of the best material were cast, and yet the slough did swallow up all, and was none the better. Discontent is a bottomless bog into which if one world were cast it would quiver and heave for another. A discontented man dooms himself to the direst form of poverty, yea, he makes himself so great a pauper that the revenues of empires could not enrich him. Are you impatient in your present position? Believe me that, as George Herbert said of revenues in times gone by, "He that cannot live on twenty pounds a year cannot live on forty"; so may I say: he who is not contented in his present position will not be contented in another though it bring him double possessions. When the vulture of dissatisfaction has once fixed its talons in the breast it will not cease to tear at your vitals.

(C H. Spurgeon.)