BEING SATISFIED

 

“They all ate and were satisfied.”  What does it mean to be satisfied?  Are we ever satisfied?  If we put a bowl of chocolate in front of a child, chances are they would keep eating and eating the chocolate until their tummy’s hurt.  And so it is with so much in our consumeristic society.  Let’s take for example our current TV watching.  Most of us have streaming services now.  I spend more time browsing through the hundreds of selections of movie choices than I do actually watching a movie!  We just never seem satisfied.  Of course, that is most apparent in our physical and sensual desires.  We just keep yearning for more and more.

But perhaps the thing we can never seem to get enough of is what feeds our egos. If it makes us look good, we do it?  As a matter of fact, the litmus test for making most decisions is, “How will this make me look?”   We decide on what to do not based on what is good for society, but what is good for me as an individual.  We see this played out in the political arena all the time, but it is not limited to there.  We find it in the business world, in ecclesial organizations and sadly in families.  The family is meant to be the most important foundation of our society and yet so often families are simply a variety of egos sharing an apartment or a house.  So many marriages fail over roommate issues.  We decide we are going to live for ourselves and not for the good of the other.  We even often expect our family members to feed our egos, when our true concern should be for their needs.  We are never satisfied.

So how does one become satisfied?  One is satisfied by searching for a deeper desire, that is a desire for God.  We all have that desire.  It is the desire for the pure love that God is and that God alone can give.  It is not love that feeds the ego, but love that is gift and is meant to be given away as gift.   We all have that desire and so did the multitudes that went to hear Jesus speak.  There didn’t seem to be enough for them, at least by the world’s standards, but what Jesus would offer would be more than enough.  There were those twelve wicker baskets of leftovers.  Apparently, everyone was satisfied.

And so, when we find ourselves wanting more and more and never feeling satisfied, perhaps that’s because we are wanting for that which can never satisfy.  We need to pause in those moments of dissatisfaction and ask ourselves, “What is it that I really want?  What will bring me true happiness?”  It is there that we will find God.  The beautiful thing is that while we are yearning for God, God is yearning for us.  And while God does not need to be satisfied, he still longs for us.  And in that moment when we come to face to face with him, totally soaking him in and he totally soaking us in, then we will truly be satisfied.

-The Servant