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

Has God Established Your Work?

www.letstalkaboutwork.tv

5. 5 lousy views. Hours of labor and prayer and love just for 5 measly people to read it and care.

You know how it goes. Weeks organizing a ministry event that next to no one attends. Days carefully pouring over the plans so that everything runs smoothly and then bad weather forces a cancellation.

Sometimes work, even Godly work, seems futile doesn’t it? Solomon understands:

“Everyone’s toil is for their mouth, yet their appetite is never satisfied…

Whatever exists has already been named,

and what humanity is has been known;

no one can contend with someone who is stronger.

The more the words, the less the meaning,

and how does that profit anyone?”

–Ecclesiastes 6:7, 10-11

Returning day after day to work we were called to do can be downright disheartening. It doesn’t seem fair, especially as people whose work is unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23).

When you work for the Lord, your tasks seem a little more important. Suddenly, having the correct response to your toddler’s simple question is tantamount. Writing up elaborate answers to life’s greatest trials using God’s Word correctly while also being pure of heart and clearly reaching a wide audience lovingly through your homemade blog seems utterly necessary.

So it’s pretty frustrating when it seems like, for all your efforts and care and all that you do is for the Lord, He isn’t using it.

Let’s get a little perspective.

In Psalm 90, we read a prayer of Moses concerning the Lord’s greatness and our lowly lots in life. The Psalm begins:

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place

throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born

or you brought forth the whole world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

We know that part. God’s been around through it all, and He will be forever. He’s where all rests and occurs that ever has or will.

“You turn people back to dust,

saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”

A thousand years in your sight

are like a day that has just gone by,

or like a watch in the night.”

Right. We’re getting a sense of the big picture. Not only is God above and beyond time, He created time. He sees it all at once. From the 5 people who read your post to how your child’s sense of confidence is distantly but strongly connected to your loving, Biblical explanations when he was 2.

Given all that, we’re reminded: we’re from dust, and we go back to it.

“Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—

they are like the new grass of the morning:

In the morning it springs up new,

but by evening it is dry and withered.”

Getting a sense of finiteness? Our time is short, and the cycle of life on earth fleeting. We’re bound up in the cycle of life, in our circumstances, and in the inevitability of being human. Compared to what we’ve been reading, this is humbling. God is forever, above all. We’re like grass or dust.

This doesn’t sound encouraging, I know, but keep reading…

“We are consumed by your anger

and terrified by your indignation.

You have set our iniquities before you,

our secret sins in the light of your presence.

All our days pass away under your wrath;

we finish our years with a moan.”

Not only are we like grass or dust in God’s bigger picture, but we’re totally unworthy. Even the secret sins of our heart cause us to moan before the Lord. We’re that sinful and that incapable of standing before the Lord ourselves. Life wears us down and we’re terrified by the Lord’s might and justice and righteous wrath concerning sin. With Christ, we can stand before the Lord confidently –but that’s because of Jesus, not our worth!

“Our days may come to seventy years,

or eighty, if our strength endures;

yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,

for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

If only we knew the power of your anger!

Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

Teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

We have the chance of living longer if we can hold on and stay strong. But whether we live long or not, our lives will go quickly and will ultimately end. In the mean, we’ll face trouble and sorrow. Even with Jesus, this is true!

Don’t be mistaken, even resting in and following Christ faithfully, we’re to fear the Lord. We are counted worthy to be reconciled with God because of Jesus, we’re still not on par with the trinity. Our days on earth are still limited. Our sin is still abominable.

But the end of this section carries also an exhortation: number your days so that you can gain a heart of wisdom. In other words, look rightly on your labor, your toil, your relationships, yourself. Take stock in light of who God is, what His greater plans are, and what He’ll be doing long after your gone (hint: His work began long before you arrived, too.)

That’s wisdom, my friends. A right perspective on life. Are you making your work and your life out to be more than it is? Less than it is? Take stock.

“Relent, Lord! How long will it be?

Have compassion on your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,

that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants,

your splendor to their children.”

Finally, an outcry we really understand. Lord we want to be satisfied in You! Lord let us worship you and help us to be thankful and pleased with the life you’ve given us…even the trouble and afflictions! Help us to understand, Lord, Your deeds.

Because the Lord’s deeds are perfect. Splendid. Holy. Unfailing. Compassionate. They don’t always make sense to us. But we’re grass, we’re dust. He’s been around for all of it, sovereign over everything. As we endure the seeming futility of our lives and try to look at our lives as the Lord does, we need our perspective to be of Him and of His ways.

At last,

“May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;

establish the work of our hands for us—

yes, establish the work of our hands.”

We can’t make our work worthy. We can’t make it last. Our work, like our bodies, will wither and pass away. Our lives, wrought with all sorts of turmoil, not the least of which is the work of our hands at times, will be before Him….and established by Him.

Your work, in the Lord, can be established by His hands. His hands that don’t fail. Hands that were around before time, are at work throughout all time and space and earth. The same hands that will be lovingly, compassionately, and righteously at work long after we’ve entered eternity.

You can’t earn that favor from the Lord. You can’t hide away secret sins to make your work more credible before Him. But you can turn it over. You can set it out for the Lord to set up as He sees fit. And your toddler’s misinterpretation of your words, and your 5 lousy views, will be established in a Kingdom far bigger, far more organized, and far more splendid than anything you could create yourself.

The same King who “establishes the work of your hands” is “your dwelling place

throughout all generations. From everlasting to everlasting…” He’s God.