Afraid to be Satisfied

Nearly a year and a half ago, I wrote post about fearing joy (coincidentally, I also wrote about a PB and Nutella Cheesecake that I’m making again this week!)

Have you ever been there? Have you ever had so much reason to be joyful but been too afraid to let yourself go there?

My husband and I received some really good, long-awaited news this week. The Lord provided and blessed beyond any measure we could have expected. His plans are so much wilder and better than ours ever have been. And so, we’ve been rejoicing!

But with new blessings come new responsibilities, worries, and questions. I can’t help but feel a little afraid again. This time not so much afraid of joy as of satisfaction…

We are often afraid to be satisfied.

To so many of us, satisfaction sounds like complacency, or giving up. To be satisfied would lead to rest –which we confuse with laziness. Simply being satisfied requires that we accept what the Lord provides, as is, right now, without doubting or wishing or believing that maybe there could be something better.

That’s difficult to do.

To say “Lord, your provision is plentiful” and not move on to a concerned prayer about what to do next, or another prayer asking for more...well, that’s not usually our first reaction. We’d have to put God’s plan above ours, His way above our way, and what He deems good over our fleshly desires.

Our tendency isn’t to wholeheartedly base our desires and hope and joy in the Lord. It’s more common, in our human nature, to squirrel away wants, wishes, comparisons, and doubts. We’re glad for the Lord’s gifts to us, but we keep the receipts in hopes that maybe we can make an exchange if we see something “better.”

It’s no wonder we’re not satisfied. Satisfaction is only truly found in Christ –without condition, without loving the world or what it offers, and without the trappings of “if,” “but, and “or.”

True satisfaction is found when our life is hidden in the Lord, and we live by His hand, with our desires delighting in Him. Real satisfaction comes when we behold His face, when we wait on Him and are guided by Him.

To be satisfied, we must stop trying to fill ourselves up with more and instead drink of the water He provides (see: Proverbs 19:23, Psalm 17:5, John 6:35, Psalm 37:4).

Isaiah  says it well: “the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side. When we aren’t in scorched places and it feels our bones are strong, we’re often quick to wonder if the miracle grow our neighbors use would be better than the living water. It’s not.

See, our Lord doesn’t fail. He doesn’t wither away in time or depend on the balance of our conditions, our emotions, or our circumstances. We don’t have to go back again and again asking for another drink to keep us feeling full.

Satisfaction is, by its nature, has two parts:

 When we think satisfaction, we tend to think of the fleeting sensation of feeling pleasantly full. There’s another aspect- one Christ wholly embodies. In Jesus, our debt is satisfied. In Jesus, our salvation is settled, and with that comes the fulfillment, contentment, and happiness that we associate with satisfaction.

The living water is offered now. We can wait, if we’d like. We can accept the salvation of Christ and continue to live worried, live by comparison, and live to fill up our perceived lacks, waiting to find our full satisfaction in Him until heaven.

But satisfaction –that is, to have enough and to delight in what you have- is available now in every way that truly matters.

We may not be satisfied with our current talents, our current job situations, our current relationship struggles –but our souls can be satisfied.

We can taste the living water now and drink in the satisfaction of knowing that “it is well” with our souls. We are reconciled to God through Christ. We have the assurance that we will be brought to completion, that we can trust in His faithful provision, perfect counsel, and loving friendship.

Is He enough to satisfy your heart today?

  

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 6:22-23

Because of this gift…

“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship” Romans 8:14-15

Live as His children. Live by His hand.

“You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” –Psalm 145:16