Satisfaction

Psalm 63:1-8

1 O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

4 So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

5 My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips

6 when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.

8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

In reading this psalm, I was instantly (and ashamedly) pulled away from where my thoughts should have lay. This psalm is about the satisfaction in ones soul... a satisfaction which can only be achieved when filled with God. And yet I was immediately drawn to thoughts of worldly satisfaction... or, more specifically, satisfactions of the flesh.

Many of us, as we stumble in the darkness, feeling empty and not quite having found God... (I'll explain this in a moment)... we try to find other things to fill that void. Now then, allow my to back up briefly... when I say "not quite having found God" - many of us claim to be believers, and of course some do not believe, but either way, most of us do not have a relationship with God. We believe in him..... and.... that's as far as it goes. And even at that, it's usually something only thought about when specifically asked "Do you believe in God?" So, while we may think we have found God, we haven't really.

So now I get back to my original statement...

Many of us, as we stumble in the darkness, feeling empty and not quite having found God... we try to find other things to fill that void we feel in our soul. We all want to feel some sort of satisfaction, completeness. Some people find this in material belongings - in things, in money. Some people find this in power. And many of us find this in "love". Or rather, in what we tend to believe is love, but is often little more than a temporary, physical, fleeting, fractured moment of self-indulgent pseudo-love.

We claim to have found our soul-mate (how many people have you said "we're soul mates" to?). We may even tell this other person we love them with all our heart and soul. We offer so many people our heart and soul. And most often, this is just a lie. Not always an intended one - we often truly believe what we think we feel. But it's very much a surface love. We entangle ourselves in another life, and in their arms, in a need to fill a part of ourselves that it seems can never be filled. We use sex, and love, to temporarily fill this void. And what's sad - it isn't even temporarily filling the void - it's masking it. It's like taking a pain killer to "cure" a broken leg. The leg is still broke... you just don't feel it. Well, your soul still has a void. You just not recognize it when you're in someone's arms.

Please don't misunderstand - there is true love felt between people. There is a true love between real friends. There is a true and complete love between spouses (theoretically anyway). There is a deep unbreakable love between a parent and child. But there is also a specific place within our souls which is meant for that unconditional, unending, undeniable love and glory of God. And it is only meant for this. Trying to fill it with anything else will not work. Maybe you'll find a temporarily pseudo-satisfaction, but nothing more than that.

Open up your heart and soul to God. Allow yourself to have a deep relationship with him. Let him satisfy your soul as only he truly can. Allow your soul to cling to him, and his hand to uphold you.