Being Satisfied with Being Dissatisfied

I was doing some thinking a few weeks ago about relationships. How much I value them, how they bring me joy and fulfillment unlike anything else in my life, how they are at the foundation of my work - which is probably a big part of why I love my work so much - and many more thoughts like these.

Maybe for you, the thing that gives you the most joy and fulfillment is your work. Maybe it's your hobbies, your ministry, your marriage, your children, or something else entirely. The point is, I think we all have something like this, something that makes us want more of what it is that that thing gives us or makes us feel. (Those reading this post are probably believers, so I'm excluding for this present part of the conversation our walks with God.)

For me, a deep, healthy, alive relationship makes me want more from it. More time, more conversation, more affirmation, more acceptance, more validation, more approval, more connection, more encouragement, more mutual burden-sharing.... more, more, more.

That's fine, but here's the problem: my relationships cannot provide those things as fully as I hunger for them. And fill in the blank with whatever it is that fulfills YOU; that thing can't give to you as fully as you want it to anymore than my relationships can for me.

Now fast forward to recently, when I got to have one of those conversations that makes me want more - a long, deep, sharing-the-weight-of-things-on-both-of-our-hearts type of talk with a treasured friend. We talked about a relationship that isn't providing everything the friend wants or needs. And I heard myself say this: "Relationships can satisfy, but they can't satiate."

You might think these words are synonyms. They kind of are; we use them interchangeably to mean filled up. But there's a key difference between them: "satiate" means to be satisfied to the full. So we can be satisfied, but we aren't necessarily filled up to the full by the things that satisfy us, even when those things are good things.

Now, let the record show that I don't say this because I like it. I say this because it rings true. In my work with hurting people - heck, in my own quiet little life! - I'm shown all the time that this life brings as much disappointment as it does delight.

With a new job... there is the loss of moving away.

With an apology.... comes the hurt from a damaged relationship.

With childbirth... comes pain.

With marriage.... comes the realization that your spouse isn't Mr./Mrs. Perfect the way the culture taught you they would be.

With home ownership... comes financial burdens and big decisions.

With faith... comes fear.

With hope... comes disappointment.

With joy.... comes heartache.

With life... comes death.

My point in all of this is that, with every good and perfect gift we receive in this world - and, make no mistake, we are blessed with MANY good and perfect gifts from our Father above - we experience a tinge of incompletion. Actually, I think a better word is imperfection. We hunger for perfection, which is why we want our relationships, jobs, marriages, children, finances, etc. to fully satisfy us. To satiate us. To fill us up to the full so that we don't have those nagging empty spaces inside our hearts or minds anymore. To be pleasantly distracted away from all that is unpleasant. That elusive state of perfection where things finally feel complete, no longer lacking. We seek fullness from things, but we are perpetually disappointed because they do not - can not - fill us to the full.

As I think back to God's original design for humanity, Adam and Eve were pretty content, pretty darn satisfied, with what God gave them. But I don't think they were satisfied in those things.... after all, how could they be? To find our satisfaction in our things in to find it outside of God, which is not consistent with His design, which makes it sin. Since there was no sin before the fall, their contentment must have been in God - even more than in each other, can you believe that!?! Adam and Eve's contentment was in the Lord Himself, the Giver of all of those many good things.

Then sin enters into the world, and the extramarital affair with our things begins. We became chronically, disturbingly infatuated with things. We are distracted from God by things. We spend (and therefore waste) far too much time chasing things. We hope for and in things. We cling to things. We mourn over the loss of things, and we jump for joy at the accumulation of things. And, again, things can refer to anything - relationships, people, hobbies, you name it. 

Because God is good, He allowed good things to continue to feel good after the fall. He didn't penalize our sin with denying our ability to find satisfaction in things.. In fact, surprisingly enough, many who don't know Him live satisfied lives.

But I think He allowed, or caused, or whatever word you want to use here, those good things to become laced with dissatisfaction after the fall. The question is why. Why would He allow or intentionally introduce dissatisfaction into things that are still satisfying to some degree? Isn't that unnecessarily punitive or spiteful or vindictive or "Indian giver-ish"of Him? Isn't it enough to be inherently sinful and constantly hounded by our sin?

If God was primarily about punishment, it would make sense that He intentionally sought to diminish our satisfaction "just because." It would make sense that, because we deserve it, He punishes us. But the Lord is not primarily about punishment. Look at all the ways He doesn't smite us when we are disrespectful of His holiness, feel entitled to His endorsement of our choices or provision of our desires, withhold praise, act selfishly, respond with anger, wallow in self-pity, offer conditional surrender, feel critical of His ways, or indulge our pride. Do we get what we deserve? No way! He protects us, pursues us, and even provides for us in the midst of our ugly temper tantrums. He gives us the job we wanted but accused Him of not caring enough about us to provide. He brings the child we bitterly decided He had forgotten we desired. He provides for a pay raise when we confidently announced to Him our awareness that He was planning to make us struggle forever financially in order to teach us a lesson. He sends a friend our way to initiate time with us when we had lost hope that our relational needs were on His radar. He leads into our lives the spouse we had questioned if He thought we were worthy of.

So, um, that'd be a NO. He is NOT about punishment primarily. He's about His glory, and providing good things, and being in restored relationship with His creation.

And if He knows that He is the best good thing He can give His children, but He continues to give us good things that He knows we'll all-too-easily have emotional affairs with, maybe He causes/allows those things to becomes laced with some dissatisfaction so that we are purposefully left a little empty, even when we get the biggest, best helping of them that they have to offer.

Ultimately, I think the point of being left empty, dissatisfied, and learning to find satisfaction in that curious state can be found in the words of Christ in John 10:10. In the NIV, Christ's words read, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." In The Message, Christ's words are put this way - and even more poignantly for the point I'm trying to make -"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

(SIDE NOTE: There was a time where I was fearful of The Message. My heart, trapped as it was in legalism, feared this translation would water down my understanding of the Gospel. How good the Lord is that this is totally not the case! This translation makes me appreciate who the Lord is and how He reigns in a way that makes me want relationship with Him, not in a way that makes me think less of Him or take Him less seriously. So Praise the Lord for that! Now back to my original idea for this post.)

Christ came to give us abundant life. Christ came to give us real life, more and better life than we can dream of. The best life we can dream of, left to our own devices, is a life of abundant things (relationships/work/children/marriage/money/etc.). This is the life we think is real because it's the closest we can come to defining what makes life meaningful.

So while it's hard, embracing that we will be dissatisfied in what satisfied us can help us remember where home is and what life is ultimately about. It's not about an abundance of infatuations with things that are good. It's about remembering that the abundance Christ offers is housed in Himself, the true and living God. HE is life. He came to give us life, which means we wouldn't have one without Him. We'd live, but we would not have LIFE without HIM.

Our relationships/work/marriages/children/hobbies will satisfy us. They will be like a great meal made of your fill-in-the-blank favorite food item. But when you've had your favorite food item, don't you tend to overeat it? And don't you tend to overeat it because you want more? And when you want more, and can't have it, even though what you did get was really good, isn't that just a smidge disappointing? Maybe it's not for you, but it is for me. So letting me experience some satisfaction, but tempering that with dissatisfaction, keeps me coming back to the Lord for my completion, growing in relationship with Him, knowing Him better, giving myself over to Him more and more, and truly accepting that His path is actually the better path that I quickly give lip service to but don't always totally believe. Being dissatisfied in the things that provide satisfaction moves me forward in my relationship with Jesus, making it alive and real and vibrant and the source of all of those things I crave. And - best of all - this relationship actually CAN give me all of that - and more - because it is with the One who is the SOURCE of "real and eternal life," a life that is "more and better" than I can dream of.

And THAT is pretty satisfying.