Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. Psalm 103:5 NASB
Satisfies – “All I really want in life is to be satisfied.” Have you ever thought something like this? What did you mean? For most people in the Western world today, the idea of satisfaction is tied to some dreamed-of material state, some hoped-for emotional comfort, some desired combination of money, sex and power. Even rock stars can’t find all that in one package, although they certainly pose for the “good life.” But when push comes to shove, there always seems to be a bit of emptiness in the corners.
David takes a different approach. Satisfaction does not arrive through my efforts to take it captive. Sab’a is a gift from God, not a medal I win (Ecclesiastes 3:13). David remembers Moses. “Then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord,” (Deuteronomy 6:11-12). The ever-present temptation to account for our well-being as the result of our own efforts is matched with the temptation to forget the Author of blessings. The prophets decry Israel for both sins since sab’a is ultimately a sign of YHVH’s hesed. Of course we might argue that David as king enjoyed a life far above most people in the tenth century BCE, but that would disregard David’s own self-proclaimed anxiety and struggle. For David as well as for us, sab’a must be accompanied by contentment for, as Ecclesiastes notes, the desires of the yetzer ha’ra are never satisfied. Paul also echoes the need for contentment. Desire and gift stand on opposites sides of the human drama.
What does it mean to be satisfied? Heschel once wrote that Man’s most fundamental question is, “What does God demand of me?” Perhaps the second question is, “Will I be satisfied with His answer?” To know the truth is not the same as to do the truth. Satisfaction is the father of contentment only when God births them both. Left to myself, my desire will always produce the bastard child of discontent. Two things are never satisfied: the grave and the yetzer ha’ra. Two things always produce unhappiness: more and envy. The cure for both is acknowledging the sovereign goodness of God.
David links satisfaction with renewal. The Hebrew is familiar: hadash, the renewed moon, the returning month, the restored covenant. Do you suppose David knew that a renewed life was not possible without satisfaction? Those who grasp at fulfillment, who cling to more in order to assuage the hunger for harmony, soon discover they are worn to the bone. Exhaustion does not produce fulfillment. It is the harbinger of the yetzer ha’ra. As the eagle renews itself by shedding old feathers, so we are renewed by shedding old patterns, old claims, old rights, old traditions. There is only one thing in life that must never be satisfied—our desire for God. And unless that is our final passion, nothing in life will renew us.
Topical Index: satisfy, sab’a, renew, hadash, contentment, Psalm 103:5
The desire for satisfaction is hardwired; satisfaction, in fact, is the state of knowing that desire has been met. Desire is not wrong; neither is satisfaction. What is wrong, I think, is the illusion that it is MY desire that creates the path to satisfaction, and satisfaction is found at a self-serve pump. These are illusions created by the essential insanity that can be always be found in the worship of Self.
Insanity is created by believing things that are not true. People go insane to the extent that they are believing lies. Every time I choose to believe a lie, I will act upon that lie. It is that wrong action; that incorrect CHOICE, that creates the insanity. By the time you start to see insanity (which people have a very strong instinct to hide, by the way; not only from others, but from themselves), there has already been a long string of incorrect choices. You see, a wrong choice is like an Oreo cookie; you can’t eat just one, because a choice in the wrong direction creates a void in reality, and nature abhors vacuums. Vacuums are experienced as pain, and our response to pain will be either the right one (stop, drop and roll – I mean, quit referencing myself, and go looking and asking why I am hurting or afraid, and when I can see why, then repent (turn around), and re-choose), or it will be to cave in to further temptation to throw yet more good money after bad. Each time I choose to ignore, cover over, defend, excuse, deny, project blame off myself, pity myself, despair, stress out, be anxious, direct anger in a wrong direction, choose an altered state of reality, or delay action, I am sinning more because each and every one of those reactions is going to be in response to yet another lie that I have to choose to believe (and that must be identified and repented for if I want to quit doing them) to do any of them. I am now starting off deep into madness, and each and every time I cave in to the desire to NOT HAVE TO CHANGE, which the Church of Self lists as its first creed, I will search out yet another ‘reason’ (lie) to not have to, and each one of those reasons will be accompanied by yet more deflective choices. This is basic casino behavior: to stave off paying the piper, I roll again for higher stakes; I reach even further afield for things to believe so that I do not have to change. By this time, not only is the insanity starting to show, my body is more likely than not starting to reflect my choices, too. Muscles are starting to stay clenched; nerves are starting to fire for no reason; digestion is certainly off, and stress is starting to produce what is referred to as cortisol drip, which is where the adrenals never shut off, and excess stress hormones are starting to erode the systems like battery acid. Migraine headaches can come about when you are in conflict over conflict; you cannot make up your mind what to do about the problems because the choices of defense and denial are starting to look absurd even to your crazy brain. There are steep prices to be paid for the condition of being stuck on self. Stuck being the operative word. Nope. No satisfaction to be found in this direction!
Yeshua said He came to do the will of His Father. There is the pattern of sanity for me. I do not, cannot, know the path love should take, because I cannot see the hidden affairs of the hearts – and that includes mine – but He can. Only love can chart a straight course in this bent world, but I do not know what love should do in each and every moment. I can memorize the Law backwards and forwards, but how to apply it in each moment I do not know. I cannot self serve the will of the Father, either. It is for these reasons that my will cannot be my navigator, and we still have not even gotten to the fact that my will is a construct of my previous choices, and will therefore be bent to the extent that I still have unrepented sin in my past that I am having to defend with even more insanity, accompanied by further wrong choices. No, my will is certainly not going to be reliable enough to be able to produce satisfaction! I can be sorrowful all the day long that I am not satisfied, and I can wish all the day long that God could satisfy me, but until I understand that only His will can produce my satisfaction, because only He can know what love actually looks like for me, then I am not going to be motivated to actually seek out His will in each of those moments, and not my own. You see, the first lie I have to believe is that I can satisfy myself. If I believe that, someone has a bridge out in a midwestern state they want to sell me…
Laurita, Good points all. I think it was Watchman Nee who taught that a willingness to do G*D’s will is the furthest place that our will can take us, but that is sufficient. For a half a century I have struggled with a bent will, rebellion, sin, insane choices, despair, depression, hopelessness which of course, have taken a heavy toll on my mind, my body and my relationships. I ordered cortisol by the barrel and estrangement by the yard. My mantra for almost 40 years (when I was able) was from Jesse Penn Lewis and her classic book on deliverance, War On The Saints: “I choose to do the will of G*D and I refuse to do the will of Satan”. Looking back, I think them were ” fighting words” for the enemy and for nearly 4o years he ‘willingly’ beat the holy cr*p out of me (sorry, but facts is facts). Well, after the number of defeats made counting the fine quartz sand on the nearby famous Siesta Key beach easier and quicker, several failed suicide attempts (I couldn’t even get that right!), a few unplanned, extended ‘STAYcations’ in both the confines of a padded room and as a ‘guest’ in several county jail cells, 10 rounds of homelessness (still in the ring for what I hope is the final round, with my head bloodied and now unbowed), two and 9/10ths divorces, the abandonment of my first wife and 8 young children, Hepatitis C, a major heart attack and several ‘minor events’, four heart surgeries and an untold number of ‘backslidings’, quittings, fleeing both to Tarshish and Sodom, all religiously followed by the requisite mental altar calls I am FINALLY …….. ????…..Not sure (because it is all new to me ), but I can state, unequivocally, that I am in a better place than I have been in all those 55 + years ( being a High School dropout my math is poor, but I reckon that was 20,000 + days of hell, in which I lived in multiples of either fear and confusion, or terror, suppression, guilt, pretense, loneliness, hypocrisy, shame, darkness for almost all of those 29 MILLION + minutes (no wonder I am weary and tired). But thanks be to YHWH for His Go’el- Kinsman Redeemer. I share this because I can (finally) and (finally) I have accepted FULL responsibility for the multiplied myriads of bad choices that I made which made me insane and in sin. For the record ( both of heaven and earth) I am NOT ashamed of the Good News of the Gospel, nor my Shepard, who has sought me ‘long time’ and has finally ‘found’ me, has applied the oil and salve, has bound my wounds and has put me in His embrace for a season of healing, wholeness and chesed. Ahhhhhh…shalom, wholeness and quiet. Sweetness personified. Thanks Laurita for all your council. As I look back over the past few months, I can say that your words “pushed me” in the right direction ( not over the edge, as you may have been previously accused by others!). Of course, there is no need to re-acknowledge Skip and his writings, from which you so gracefully springboard (perfect 10’s on my scorecard for both of you). Finally and most importantly, I share because there may be others here, lurking or in the open, who are similarly struggling, unbeknownst to anyone (we learn early on how to fake, cover, camouflage, adapt, pretend all whilst dying inwardly). If you want someone to hear you and perhaps accompany you out of the deep dark woods, please contact me at stanleynm@aol.com and I’ll give you my phone number and will lend you more than just my ear. Freed in Yeshua, Michael
Thanks for sharing all that, Michael. He is good. He is patient. And He is healing (and everything else good!). Blessings to you.
Whoo hoo, Michael! I can tell where you are at: restoration! That’s the good place! Giving out your contact info. Wow, I’m impressed. You’ve come a long way! I have had a sneaking suspicion for a long time that that exquisitely honed humor, which can only come from one source, I am convinced, belied a history that looks about right, by your recollection. You learn to laugh at the bottom, not the top, that I do know. Looking at your background, I bet you could find something funny to say about absolutely anything! I, for one, can appreciate all of it, and know quite well what well your drinking water comes out of. Thanks for sharing! That was awesome! Your horrendous history account made my day! (Laughs all around.) I’m impressed: major heart attacks and events and carnage in all directions, too. It is a miracle that you are not dead, brother. I hope you know how much you must have cost heaven to keep you alive!
You know what they say in those twelve-step groups when you slip up: the standard pronouncement is that you must have needed a little more information. Michael, I bet you have a couple graduate degrees’ worth, at least, judging by how much information you were willing to pony up for! That’s a lotsa expensive eddication! Any more questions? LOL!
I know what you mean about the fight, too. I fought and lost for a long time until I got taught that direct attempts to engage the enemy are all witchcraft. So much for fighting! At that point, all you are doing is shadow-boxing with yourself. I indulged in self-hatred and all its various species until I realized that I was a child of the Most High, and how dare I hate a child He had made in His image and pronounced very good? When I gave in, I handed in all my tools of the trade, including driving and striving and performing for love, and a whole boatload of self-righteousness and religious spirits. This being just a little sheep business is something, frankly, that I didn’t get taught very well. You learn how to be tended by getting tended, and that part somehow got overlooked. Now that I have been released under my own congnizance and am the biggest adult in my life, I am learning how to tend myself, of which the most important part is to remember to ask for, and let, my Good Shepherd tend me. This is all what that self-hatred was directly opposed to. Working my way to heaven just ended up being a fast track to hell. I think I will go repent again, just for fun! So nice knowing you, brother! I am more real because of you, and we both have gotten answers because you must have needed them. I owe you big time!
Love, your sister in the Body,
Laurita
P. S. So as to keep Michael from doing an end run around me (actually, I am just trying to keep up!) I have decided that if he can do it, I can, too, so here is my contact info, same offer: lauritahayes@gmail.com. I still need a lot, but by now I have learned that you get when you give, so I am open for business, too! Evenings Eastern Time are the best times to reach me, and Sabbaths are always open for the same. I love all y’all!
🙂
Presently in Spain. I am so glad that Michael and Laurita are keeping everyone busy. I will try to write something when I get better internet.
Wow, Michael, thank you so much for baring your heart and life! It’s a privilege to celebrate and walk with you! You are an encouragement to me (and others I’m sure)! 🙂
Shalom!
WOW! Michael what a testimony of victory and overcoming, and gutsy sharing.Bravo! Underneath that humour, I can sense a feeling of sadness. Sadness of the many wrong choices/decisions made, but, you have crossed-over! It’s one step at a time, in a long and strait journey. ABBA’s rich blessings upon you!
Shalom! You have so encouraged us here.
I am speechless with the generosity that Laurita and Michael have shown today. We should all be eternally grateful for their friendship and sharing that we all have something to learn from directed each and every day by the efforts of the Skipper. Their wisdom and collective sense of humour is to be cherished. Love and hugs and shalom to you all.
Thank you, Skip, for starting this forum in the first place. Thank you Michael Stanley and Laurita Hayes for your contributions. It’s a high point of my day when I can sit down and read the TWs and the comments. We’re all just bare butts and open hearts before the Lord. There is no hiding, really, although people do try to present a certain image. Praise be for people who have shed the need to be actors and actresses. You’ve shown the rest of us how to do it.
Out of the Mess Comes a Message
Delivered! Saved! Renewed! Transformed!
This is the testimony! – “All things (all things) “new.”
All questions answered: *in Christ. Are YOU in?
Not only are the twice-born *in Christ, but He the First-born is in us!!
~ Christ in YOU, the hope of glory!! ~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRVHBv4rYCc&feature=player_embedded