Tag Archives: Enjoying God forever

Fully satisfied

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What really satisfies you?
A nice house? A relaxing vacation or exciting adventure? A really good meal? A good run? Time with friends and family? A day at the beach? Singing and listening to music? Doing good? Five minutes in the bathroom without interruptions from the children? 🙂

Did you know God wants us to have joy? He wants us to experience being fully satisfied. But it might not be in the way we expect. We so often seek satisfaction in things, in others, and in physical and emotionally charged experiences. And I’m thankful for the way God blesses us with these experiences. They have enriched my life and provided many great memories.

But I think we were designed to be fully and permanently satisfied only through a close and genuine relationship with our loving God. He is the only one who can fill our need for ultimate satisfaction.

John Piper’s book, Desiring God, has helped me view God, and interpret His Word from a different perspective. Like so many others, I had previously thought my primary purpose was to serve my wonderful, gracious, and loving creator. (And that IS a result of the Christian’s personal encounter with Jesus.) But Pastor Piper challenges us to consider “the chief purpose of man(kind) is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” That is, to be more satisfied in HIM than in anything else.

Maybe you will ponder this one thought for a moment. How do you feel when your child or grandchild really wants, more than anything else, just to spend time with YOU? Or when you realize it really doesn’t matter a great deal what you and your closest friend do, so long as you can really enjoy each other’s company? Those experiences speak great satisfaction and value to you, don’t they? Imagine how our Heavenly Father feels when we come to Him, simply because it is so SATISFYING to be in His presence!

Like any goal, we won’t hit the mark every time. Just as there are times when we are upset with or don’t feel close to those we love here on earth, there will be times, perhaps even seasons, when we don’t feel satisfied with God. But just as we keep pursuing satisfaction on earth, let’s intentionally seek to find real satisfaction today by enjoying God more than anything else.

Psalm 63:1-5
1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Doing What Jesus Said: Become Like Children

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I write each post primarily to remind myself how I need to live my life each day. In this series on Do What Jesus Said, I am also writing to the community who profess to be Christians (though I believe there is value for all of us in these writings). It is to our – and the world’s – neglect when  we call ourselves followers of Christ but give little regard to living out what Jesus told us to do. “We are so easily pleased,” (and distracted) CS Lewis would say. But the truths that Jesus spoke are meant both to convict us and to transform us. Only then can we be “the light of the world.”

“And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 18:2-4

Jesus was always enthralled with the little ones and their honesty and humility of faith. He said, no matter what knowledge we have and without regard to how many good deeds we did or even prayers we said, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven unless we become like children. Imagine that, heaven filled with a bunch of kids playing and enjoying God forever without adults to interfere and legalize things!

I think one of the things Jesus loved about children was their ability to receive and share love unconditionally. We adults have difficulty with this; there always seems to be strings attached.

One of the principles I tried to pass on while I was in business leadership was to “presume goodness.” Rather than always take the offensive when “that” person spoke up, presume they have a good heart and seek first to understand. If their heart is ill-intended it always comes out on its own. Give love a chance. I am still learning this lesson!

I think another thing about children that captured Jesus’s heart was their ability to imagine a world quite different from the one they live in. Do you still have that gift of imagination? It allows you to see what is unseen and to contemplate a changed world.

Yes we are called to grow up in Christ, to mature as we come to a greater experience of His love for us. At the same time we are to hold onto that childlike faith that believes what is real, but just can’t be seen with the human eye.

That is the kind of faith that works. Keep it simple… Do What Jesus Said: become like a child, spend time with children like Jesus did, and as you teach them gentleness and wisdom and love and compassion, let them teach you about the kingdom of God.