Where To Look For Satisfaction
Last week I wrote a post that I titled “Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” If you missed that post, click here to read it. I am convinced that the hunger for fulfillment is one we all constantly struggle to satisfy. It is one of the great challenges of life. For that reason, today I want to again look at where to find the satisfaction we all deeply desire.
I have a speech impediment and that for much of my life left a void in my soul. A void that in my youth I attempted to fill through athletic accomplishments. My childish thinking was if I could score one more touchdown or just win another sprint, the void in my soul might somehow be filled with the satisfaction of success. Just let me say, that game plan did not work too well. I was looking in the wrong place.
My football career ended prematurely due to a serious neck injury and several years after that I finally gave up on sprinting due to nagging lower leg issues. I felt like I was “left with nothing.” You might not have played football or run track, but I am sure you had and have success in whatever you are talented at, and if you are honest, you will agree that none of that brings lasting contentment. No amount of fame or fortune can permanently fill what is intended to be filled by God.
Not only is it fame and fortune, but also more stuff, washboard abs, larger breasts, more friends, the nicest car in the neighborhood, or the latest technology gadget, that we seek after to help us fill the void that is within us. We go through life opening and closing drawers on the card catalog cabinet, looking for what is not in there.
Enjoying life and the trappings that comes along with it is not a bad thing. God wants us to enjoy life. In 1 Timothy 6:17, among other things, we are told that God “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” But Scripture also tells us that worldly “stuff” does not bring soul filling satisfaction that lasts a lifetime.
Scripture is filled with verses promising satisfaction to the discontented soul.
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:35).
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things (Psalm 107:8-9).
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity gives us this answer to why looking for happiness in places other than God is hopeless. Here is what Lewis says – “The reason it will never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering with religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
So, enjoy your success and your stuff for what is it intended, but look for and find permanent peace, joy, and happiness only in Jesus. He is your lasting and living water!
Where do you look for satisfaction? Are you looking in the right place?
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