John Calvin on contentment

"the happiness promised us in Christ does not consist in outward advantages--such as leading a joyous and peaceful life, having rich possessions, being safe from all harm, and abounding with delights such as the flesh commonly longs after. No, our happiness belongs to the heavenly life!" John Calvin http://www.reformedtheology.ca/quotes_topic.htm

John Calvin on God's mercy

"The divine mercy is a better foundation of trust than any life fashioned out to ourselves, and than all other supports taken together. On this account the Lord's people, however severely they may suffer from poverty, or the violence of human wrongs, or the languor of desire, or hunger or thirst, or the many troubles and anxieties of life, may be happy notwithstanding; for it is well with them, in the best sense of the term, when God is their friend. Unbelievers, on the other hand, must be miserable, even when all the world smile upon them; for God is their enemy, and curse necessarily attaches to their lot." John Calvin

John Calvin on God's providence

"When we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness, remember to mount up on God, and learn to believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted and sent by God's just dispensation." John Calvin

John Calvin on Joy

"We ought to bear in mind, that our happiness consists in this, that his hand is stretched forth to govern us, that we live under his shadow, and that his providence keeps watch and ward over our welfare. Although, therefore, we have abundance of all temporal good things, yet let us be assured that we cannot be truly happy unless God vouchsafe to reckon us among the number of his flock. Besides, we then only attribute to God the office of a Shepherd with due and rightful honor, when we are persuaded that his providence alone is sufficient to supply all our necessities. As those who enjoy the greatest abundance of outward good things are empty and famished if God is not their shepherd; so it is beyond all doubt that those whom he has taken under his charge shall not want a full abundance of all good things. David, therefore, declares that he is not afraid of wanting any thing, because God is his shepherd." John Calvin

John Calvin on prayer

"We know that whenever the fathers prayed under the law, their hope of obtaining whatever they asked was founded upon their sacrifices; and, in like manner, at this day our prayers are acceptable to God only insofar as Christ sprinkles and santifcies them with the perfume of His own sacrifice...
Whenver our minds come to be occupied by carnal confidence, they fall at the same time into a forgetfulness of God. The inspired writer, therefore, uses the word remember, to show, that when the saints betake themselves to God, they must cast off every thing which would hinder them from placing an exclusive trust in Him. This remembrance of God serves two important purposes to the faithful. In the first place, however much power and resources they may possess, it nevertheless withdraws them from all vain confidence, so that they do not expect any success except from the pure grace of God. In the second place, if they are bereft and utterly destitute of all succour, it notwithstanding so strengthen and encourages them, that they call upon God both with confidence and constancy." (John Calvin)

John Calvin on the glory of God and contentment

"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance. (Psalm 16:6-7) The Psalmist so glories in God as nobly to despise all that the world imagines to be excellent and desirable without him. By magnifying God in such honorable and exhaulted strains, he gives us to understand that he does not desire anything more as his portion and felicity. This doctrine may be profitable to us in many ways. It ought to draw us away not only from all the perverse inventions of superstition, but also from all the allurements of the flesh and of the world. Whenever, therefore, those things present themselves to us which would lead us away from resting in God alone, let us make use of this sentiment as an antidote against them, that we have sufficient cause for being contented, since he who has in himself an absolute fullness of all good, has given himself to be enjoyed by us. In this way we will experience our condition to be always pleasant and comfortable; for he who has God as his portion is destitute of nothing which is requisite to constitute a happy life." John Calvin