satisfaction
Growing up around the church, I heard phrases like “God is the only thing that can truly satisfy you” and “Christ completely satisfies you”. These phrases are absolutely true! Let’s look.
John 6:35
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.”
Isaiah 55:1-3
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.”
However, I lived frustrated for a while that I wasn’t satisfied in God, and I felt like I was trying to be; desiring to be. But I just wasn’t, and this lead to some (sinful) bitterness on my part.
How do you explain this? How do you get past this roadblock of growth?
First of all, you have to be honest with God. don’t clean yourself up before going to him: he needs you to tell him where you actually are so he has something to work with, like you telling the doctor everything that’s wrong with you so that they have the necessary information to diagnose you and take steps to help you get better.
So, be honest with him about your bitterness and frustration. Once I did this, I noticed that God started to work.
I was reading the Isaiah 55 verses, and suddenly understood (through God revealing to me) that you don’t come to God automatically satisfied in him after becoming a Christian: you go to him to be satisfied. It’s a process. If we were automatically completely satisfied in God immediately after justification, we wouldn’t ever desire anything other than him. Yes, this is what we’re striving towards, but it doesn’t happen instantaneously: God molds and changes our heart toward him and our desires to match up with his.
This being said, we should, as Christians, always be striving to desire Christ over everything, and let God do the work of turning our hearts toward him.
Thanks for reading!
-Alyssa
SEPTEMBER 16, 2013