On average, if you ask people – on a scale of 0 to 10 – how happy, how contented are you with your life, they’ll give you a six. Six out of ten! Is that any way to live the one life you’ve been given?!

The reality is that most of us, well we just kind of bobble along through life. We don’t think too much about it except perhaps the bits that may not be working so well at the moment. We’re all pretty good at brooding over that difficult relationship or what so-and-so might think about us; what they might be saying behind our backs. We’re all pretty good at worrying about our finances or our children or complaining about the fact that someone who, in our estimation is nowhere near as competent as we are, was promoted ahead of us at work.

Whatever it is we are very good at complaining and the other thing that we’re pretty good at is comparing ourselves to others. Oh she’s so much better looking. He’s so much smarter. Why can’t I do what that person can do? And so the list goes on.

But when it comes to strategically thinking about our lot in life – what’s working, what’s not working – am I satisfied with where my life is headed and if not what do I need to change? Well come on, let’s be honest most of us don’t think that way.

You have to ask yourself, why is that? With just one life to live here on planet earth why is it that we’re so good focusing on the negative things, in effect the problems, instead of what we need to do to make things better, the solution.

Well that nagging sense of dissatisfaction that many people live their whole lives with normally revolves around one of four things:

Firstly, a lot of people aren’t satisfied with who they are. Secondly, sometimes we can be like a square peg in a round hole doing things that we’re not meant to be doing. Thirdly, if an important relationship isn’t working, that tends to make us really dissatisfied with life. And finally, sometimes people aren’t satisfied with what they have. Let me summarise those four again:

Number one, who we are. Number two, what we’re doing. Number three, who we’re with. Number four, what we have.

Let’s come back to that question I posed at the beginning: on a scale of one to ten how satisfied are you with your life here and now today? I wonder what your answer is. I ask that question rather a lot when I’m speaking with groups of people not just around Australia but in fact right around the world and can I tell you with a degree of certainty that is very high the average response is about six out of ten.

And you know what makes that really scary for me is that most often I ask that question of Christians when I’m speaking at Churches. And so here’s a group of people who claim to have hit on the truth about life, who claim to have all the answers and yet even for them the average is a paltry six out of ten in terms of how satisfied they are with their lives.

Let’s say your response is pretty much bang on average, you’re a six out of ten, is that really any way to live your life – this life that’s been given to you; this life that is so incredibly precious? Come on I’m asking you to think about your life here and now. If your level of contentment and satisfaction is a six out of ten is that how you want to live the rest of your days here on this earth?

I’m going to challenge you today to think about a new start, a fresh start, a fresh look at your life. Not just to moan and groan about the things that aren’t working but to think honestly about the things that are robbing you on average of 40% of your contentment and doing something about it.

Firstly – who you are? A lot of people aren’t comfortable with who they are. Sometimes that’s because we have a distorted view of things but other times it’s because we’re not living a good life. Dishonesty for instance has a way of robbing you of your levels of contentment.

Either way whether it’s our attitudes about ourselves or our actions that are causing us to be unhappy with who we are, are you just going to sit there and let it go on for the rest of your life or are you going to do something about it? Well?

And that leads us kind of to the second area of discontentment, what we’re doing with our lives. So many people are square pegs in round holes. In other words they’re doing things, working away at jobs that they were never cut out to do.

Surveys consistently show that over two thirds don’t enjoy their jobs. They become accountants when they don’t enjoy working with numbers. They become carers looking after the elderly when they don’t enjoy people contact. So if that’s you are you going to spend the rest of your life working at something you were never ever going to be able to enjoy, something that you never ever going to be able to excel at?

The third area of contentment is relationships. Marriage is the obvious one. So many married couples start off happy and then the cares of the world, the pressures of children, the mortgage and the daily grind wears down their relationship until they’re married in name only.

I have a beautiful wife, Jacqui, who I love very much yet still the grind of life conspires to attack and wear down our relationship which is why we’re about to go and have a few days off together to restore and refresh and to just enjoy each other. How many people live in relationships that should be great, that could be great but never do anything about it?

And finally some people aren’t content with what they have either because they’re always comparing themselves with other people and that’s an attitude thing or because they don’t apply themselves and work hard enough at doing something they’re really cut out to do.

So which ever of those four areas in your life is robbing you of your satisfaction and contentment here’s my question, in fact my challenge to you at the beginning of this year is this, are you just going to sit there or are you going to do something about it? Well?

A Scripture that I love to come back to time and time again is one that provides a complete executive summary of how to get some of these things sorted out in our lives, how to get our ducks in a row so to speak. Its Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 in the New Testament which says that we are

God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that he prepared beforehand for us to walk into.

So firstly we are who God made us to be, hand crafted by Him, His workmanship and secondly in making us in that certain way with our natural gifts and strengths and talents and motivations on the one hand and our natural limitations on the other He did so with a very specific end in mind.

He made each one of us to do the good works that He already prepared beforehand, way beforehand, even before time began, literally so that as we take each new step in life we can walk into the good things that God has already prepared for us, the good things that are a perfect fit with who He made us to be.

What’s the matter with us? We’re not happy with who we are, we’re not happy with what we’re doing, we’re not happy with our relationships and our resources, why do we run around in ever decreasing circles at an average satisfaction level of only six out of ten?

Why would we want to spend the rest of our lives living like that when all we really need to do is to get close to Jesus and to figure out who He made us to be and what He made us to do? Friend you are Gods workmanship, you are created in Christ Jesus to do all the fantastic things that He’s already prepared for you to walk into.