Satisfaction
I'm blogging out of guilt. I haven't written anything for a while and actually felt guilty for not writing anything. Am I crazy? Don't answer that.
Staying on track with my finances talk, we started Financial Peace University here at the church. I think it's going to be better than I anticipated. Nothing terribly new.
For me the issue still revolves around a heart issue of contentment versus discontentment. You can manage your money all you want and still be full of wants and desires that will destroy you if you don't tame them with contentment. I'm talking to myself here. I have lots of wants. I have stopped listening to advertisements on TV or the radio and I'm trying to avoid looking at ads in newspapers. The eyes are drawn to desires and the desires hook the heart. The only way to stop the cycle that I can see is to stop feeding the eyes.
This is true in many areas of our lives, isn't it? We are seeking gratification, we are seeking to feel good, to be whole and we keep putting stuff into the emptiness hoping that this "stuff" will satisfy the longings in our hearts. But of course it doesn't.
There is only one thing that satisfies, or so I'm told. Relationship with Jesus is the ultimate satisfaction. And yet, what keeps me and so many other Christians from living out this truth? Could it be that we don't understand how Jesus satisfies us? Could it be that we don't understand what real satisfaction is? What would it look like to be satisfied, to be content? What does it look like, feel like to be satisfied with Jesus?
I have done the spiritual discipline thing - fasting, prayer, solitude, Bible reading, journaling, silence, etc. And I can say that for a time those things satisfied me. But life overcame me and I lost my faith for a while. Now the very idea of doing most of those things drives me nuts. They don't satisfy. Is it because Jesus is no longer in those things, perhaps never was in those things? No, He was in those things, of that I'm sure.
But, since my crisis of faith, those things no longer mean as much to me. As the song says, "I can't get no...satisfaction....and I've tried, and I've tried..."
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."
Staying on track with my finances talk, we started Financial Peace University here at the church. I think it's going to be better than I anticipated. Nothing terribly new.
For me the issue still revolves around a heart issue of contentment versus discontentment. You can manage your money all you want and still be full of wants and desires that will destroy you if you don't tame them with contentment. I'm talking to myself here. I have lots of wants. I have stopped listening to advertisements on TV or the radio and I'm trying to avoid looking at ads in newspapers. The eyes are drawn to desires and the desires hook the heart. The only way to stop the cycle that I can see is to stop feeding the eyes.
This is true in many areas of our lives, isn't it? We are seeking gratification, we are seeking to feel good, to be whole and we keep putting stuff into the emptiness hoping that this "stuff" will satisfy the longings in our hearts. But of course it doesn't.
There is only one thing that satisfies, or so I'm told. Relationship with Jesus is the ultimate satisfaction. And yet, what keeps me and so many other Christians from living out this truth? Could it be that we don't understand how Jesus satisfies us? Could it be that we don't understand what real satisfaction is? What would it look like to be satisfied, to be content? What does it look like, feel like to be satisfied with Jesus?
I have done the spiritual discipline thing - fasting, prayer, solitude, Bible reading, journaling, silence, etc. And I can say that for a time those things satisfied me. But life overcame me and I lost my faith for a while. Now the very idea of doing most of those things drives me nuts. They don't satisfy. Is it because Jesus is no longer in those things, perhaps never was in those things? No, He was in those things, of that I'm sure.
But, since my crisis of faith, those things no longer mean as much to me. As the song says, "I can't get no...satisfaction....and I've tried, and I've tried..."
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."
posted by Greg at 12:46 PM
1 Comments:
Blogging out of guilt, eh? I can relate. I feel badly when I haven’t blogged for a while. I’m going to blog about money over on my site.
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