Sadly, many Christians today are discontent with life. They have become emotionally and psychologically jaundiced from a sense that their life lacks that “pop”—that something—that person, that thing, that experience which they believe will provide the level of fulfillment, significance, and satisfaction they’ve longed for but have yet to discover.

In 1985, Prince and The Revolution released the critically-acclaimed album Around the World in a Day.

The album included two top-10 singles: “Raspberry Beret,” which peaked at number two in the United States, and “Pop Life,” which reached number seven. Though the somewhat playful and whimsical Raspberry Beret was the album’s most successful release, the song Pop Life is my personal favorite because the lyrics, though somewhat lighthearted, nevertheless pose weighty questions that warrant our deliberate consideration:

What’s the matter with your life?
Is the poverty bringing u down?
Is the mailman jerking u ’round?
Did he put your million-dollar check
In someone else’s box?
Tell me, what’s the matter with your world?
Was it a boy when u wanted a girl?
Don’t u know straight hair ain’t got no curl?
Life it ain’t real funky,
Unless it’s got that pop!
Dig it!
Pop life,
Everybody needs a thrill.
Pop life,
We all got a space 2 fill.
Pop life,
Everybody can’t be on top.
But life it ain’t real funky,
Unless it’s got that pop![1]

I used to DJ house-parties back in the day and the extended version of Pop Life was one of my go-to tracks to help “get the party started” (as we used to say.) But apart from being a popular dance track, fundamentally, Pop Life is a song about contentment or, perhaps better, discontentment.

Pop Life confronts us about the things we yearn for in life and our response when those desires and expectations go unmet. But as author Stephen Arterburn warns:

“When we settle for unhealthy and unfulfilling imitations of what we really desire, our appetites can begin to rage out of control and start controlling us. We will turn to sources of satisfaction that will eventually turn on us and force us either to give up altogether or to overindulge to the bitter end.” – Feeding Your Appetites, p. 9

Sadly, many Christians today are discontent with life. They have become emotionally and psychologically jaundiced from a sense that their life lacks that “pop”—that something—that person, that thing, that experience which they believe will provide the level of fulfillment, significance, and satisfaction they’ve longed for but have yet to discover.

It is this pursuit of the “Pop Life” that has led many believers astray.

In their self-centered zeal to remedy the fact that their life “ain’t funky,” they become engrossed in sins they thought they would never commit while, conversely, reaping consequences they thought they would never suffer. But such is the subtle—and deceptive—allure of discontentment. As Ralph Venning (1621-74) said:

“One sin, though committed but once, is one and once too much. Besides, when the Serpent’s head is in, it is hard to keep out the whole body; one makes way for the other. It is almost impossible to sin once and only once.”[2]

Discontentment is grounded in misplaced affections; and affections—for better or worse—are always a matter of the heart. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there is your heart also.”[3]

At the root of all discontentment is a heart that has lost sight of what Jesus described as the “foremost” commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”[4]

Though not often considered in theological terms, discontentment is sin. It is sin because it is evidence that we treasure something or someone more than we treasure Christ. Discontentment pridefully declares to the One who willingly paid our sin-debt on the cross, “Sorry, Lord, but You’re just not enough for me. I want more.”

Read More