Can't Get No Satisfaction?

By and large, most of us are so saturated with abundance in this country - particularly in the suburbs - that our perception of what are our real needs versus what are only our wants has become horribly skewed. From birth we're told by countless sources that if you want something, you deserve to have it. Self-denial is almost shunned. We are all about gaining and consuming as much as we possibly can, and we've been falsely led to believe that if we can just have/ingest/partake in _______, then we'll be happy.

Here's the problem with that line of thinking: we are all little Mick Jaggers deep down.

When it comes to trying to shove one more shiny trinket into our pockets just so we will hopefully feel complete, inevitably we find that we just can't get no satisfaction. These trinkets can manifest themselves as any number of material things (clothes, cars, houses, boats, home decor, the latest electronic gadget - the list is endless), or perhaps even as grand life "experiences" (pleasure from food/alcohol, traveling, hobbies, parties, accomplishment), and even the collection of people (social status, friends, spouse, children, boyfriend/girlfriend). Most of these things are not bad in and of themselves and can have a healthy place in our lives. But if you're like me, you've found yourself time and time again baffled by the fact that you're putting your daily hope in one or more of these faltering, dissatisfying trinkets of life.

Until we allow the Holy Spirit to wake and shake us up, we are blind to our predicament. Left to itself, this blindness leads to a sort of spiritual lulling to sleep - we become complacent and bland, lacking in any real passion for life because what we're counting on to provide that passion falls disappointingly short every time. We may look around and think we're doing good, smug in our estimation that we've made it pretty far in life. We think we have all we want and don't really need anything, even God Himself.

In Revelation 3:17-20, Christ speaks to this predicament:

¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. ¹⁸ So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire.
Then you will be rich.

Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness,

and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.

¹⁹ I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and
turn from your indifference.
²⁰ “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

Wretched? Miserable? Poor? Blind? Naked? That's not what most of us see when we look at the average middle class American flying down the interstate in their trinket of choice. But, as we know, God looks at the inside of a person, not the outside (see 1 Samuel 16:7).

And do you also notice that Christ ends this chapter in Revelation not with a blast of righteous wrath, rejecting and shunning those who have fallen into this trap of self-seeking? No, he gently reaches out to us feeble little things (he knows we are only dust, Psalm 103:14) and pleads with us to turn from our indifference toward him. He desires that we find true riches, and that we be restored to him as friends - and from what I can tell, he even wants to cook us dinner (imagine how seriously tasty THAT will be)!

I want to daily be reminded of what brings true, lasting riches: putting my hope in Christ. I'll be honest, as a broken and weak human, it is not an easy task - especially when we are surrounded by such American excess at every turn. That is why I do my best to daily counteract the toll this flood of abundance takes on my soul by spending time with my Father in his Word, asking him to make my mind like his. Just this morning he reminded me of one of my favorite Proverbs (30:8-9):

...give me neither poverty nor riches!
Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.
⁹ For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”
And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.

For a season of my life, I knew all too well what it meant to struggle with financial hardship, just praying you have enough money in the bank till the next paycheck comes in. But even in that dark place, God always provided for my needs (Psalm 37:25). I pray I'm never led to walk down that rough path again, but even if I am, I am confident that the Lord provides for his children.

And even more than a prayer against poverty, I know that what I really should continually pray against is the temptation to allow the lure of abundance to cause me to deny my desperate need for God. Only in him alone can we ever really acquire the true joy, passion, security, and peace for which we are all designed to hunger.

Christ alone satisfies.

(somebody should really tell Mick.)