Can't Get No Satisfaction
Whether it’s thick-papered, glossy ads for various products, roadside signs or social media advertisements, products and services promise that we can become (or seem to be) more hip, smarter, of the socially elite, happier, and fulfilled. The question must be asked, “If ‘stuff’ can meet our deepest needs, why do we still want more?”
This inability of material possessions, social position or human accomplishments to meet our needs did not arise with the age of pop-up advertising; it has always been so. Years ago, Mick Jagger famously sang, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” But long before that, around the early third century AD, the Roman leader Septimus stated, “I have been everything, and it is nothing.” Back up further, and we find Solomon, the wisest man in the world, gave biblical counsel, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on all the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind…” (Ecclesiastes 1:11).
Strange how we pursue objects, titles, and recognition only to have them prove to be dry wells, yet we shake off the disappointment, dust our hands and chase after another notion promising the satisfaction of our thirst. We try our best to use human-created means to meet a divinely-created desire, yet come up short. The conclusion of Ecclesiastes includes the statement: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all” (12:13b). That's it; the pursuit of all humanity throughout the ages is wrapped up in worship of our Creator.
The longing for something more is not met in what we can become or gain on our own, but it is met only in knowing God through Jesus. The real reason that all the lesser things can never satisfy is simple: they aren’t big enough. Only Christ is.
Pray that...
We would live with a continual awareness that all earthly things will pass away. - 1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
We will find great satisfaction in the truth that God loves us. - Psalm 90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
We would give God thanks for supplying all our needs by his grace. - Psalm 145:16 You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
We will find ultimate satisfaction in no one other than Jesus. - John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.