satisfied?
February 2, 2003
i was sitting in sunday school today (aka CD team for RHCBCers) and we were talking about a passage in john. this passage has a LOT of food references so as sunday school progressed, i was getting hungrier and hungrier. i mean, come on now. if you talk about eating constantly, you get hungry! :)
so i started thinking about eating. you know sometimes when you're really, really hungry, you really want food right? and when you eat it, you get this sense of supreme satisfaction during the meal. or if you just eat at a nice place (ie. the keg w/ the MEN's group) and you're having your meal, you also have a deep sense of satisfaction when you sink your teeth into the lovely steak :)
i was thinking about that and what was discussed this morning in the sermon. herman was talking about having this deep longing/desire for God (ref: psalm 84:1-7) and he gave a pretty good analogy for it. it was saying how there was this master and this apprentice. and this apprentice was asking his master how to deepen his relationship with God. so the master takes the apprentice and puts his head under water for 30 seconds. then asks him, if there's something you want to ask me. then the apprentice says, yes i'd like to know how to deepen my relationship with God. so the master takes him again, and puts his head under water for 45 seconds. then asks him, if there's something you want to ask me. then the apprentice says, yes i'd like to know how to deepen my relationship with God. so the master takes him again, and puts his head under water for 60 seconds. then asks him, if there's something you want to ask me. then the apprentice says, "air, i need air". and so the master says to the apprentice that he's figured out how to deepen his relationship with God. when his desire for God becomes like that desire he wanted for air, that's key! when his desire for God surpasses all other things in life - when everything else pales in comparison.
so anyway, as i thought about myself being hungry, it became an analogy to me in a different light. think about that satisfaction that you have when you finally eat that meal, or eat the "man's" meal. it's a pretty fulfilling or deep satisfaction right? of course! but it's only short-lived. it passes very quickly afterwards. but with God, it's not like that at all. He quenches our deepest thirsts, our deepest longings, beyond anything that we can imagine. i'm reminded this morning of a quote of john piper: "God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him"
i'm still learning to be "most satisfied in God" - to not have expectations whenever i go to each place, but just to be happy with where i'm at. i think that's one of the things that really messed me up when i was going to fellowships and different churches. i EXPECTED something of people. i expected them to approach and welcome me with open arms. i wasn't happy that Jesus was guiding me or with me, that didn't even occur to me. i wanted human interaction to take place, and it wasn't so i'd get disappointed. what i still need to learn is to be completely satisfied in God, to a degree where i'm not relying on people to affirm who i am or to rely on people to make me feel accepted. because the truth is, people will fail you. God doesn't. He never will :) i think i've moved closer to that from before, but i'm not as close to being satisfied as i thought i was. but that's okay. i'm still learning. God's still teaching me. He's not finished w/ me yet, thank heavens!
so my thought for the day - what's my "desire" level like with God? i want to come to a place where my heart is like the psalmist's from psalm 84: 1-2:
How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
does my soul YEARN and even faint for the God? does my heart and FLESH CRY out for God? is my soul thought every morning when i arise an overwhelming rush and desire to jump into spend time with Him?
i want it to be :) i want everything to pale in comparison to knowing Christ.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (philippians 3: 7-9)
Posted by Leo Chan at February 2, 2003 2:41 PM
