Seeking Satisfaction
Based on Isaiah 55:2-3, 6-9, 1Corinthians 10:1-5, 12-13, Luke 13:6-9
Sixty years ago, the British rock band the Rolling Stones released a single that went on to be one of their biggest hits. The song was titled “Satisfaction” as in “I can’t get no satisfaction”. Most of you are now singing that song in your heads. The reason it popped into my head is that we are reflecting today on the way that humans are constantly seeking satisfaction. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ lyrics reflect that when they wrote: “When I'm drivin' in my car, and the man come on the radio, he's tellin’ me more and more about some useless information, supposed to fire my imagination…” and then they go on to sing, “I can’t get no satisfaction, ‘cause I try and I try and I try and I try…”.
Mick was quoted as saying his lyrics came from his disgust at the American marketing machine which was constantly harping and selling – driving comparison and competition between people about what brands they purchased, what car they drove, clothes they wore and in what kind of house they lived. It’s not different today – the only difference is that in 1965 there were only a handful of radio and television stations. Today, we are bombarded with social media influencers, and hundreds of television/internet feeds that are constantly hawking their wares and trying to influence our thinking and consuming. We continue seeking satisfaction just like the words of Jagger and Richards, we “try and try and try and try”, but after all that trying, are we as individuals any more satisfied today than we were 60 years ago?
According to a Gallup poll that was conducted the first three weeks of this year, the answer is no. Their analysis of the survey results is, “The combined 78% of U.S. adults who are now satisfied (very or somewhat) with their lives is well below the trend average of 84% since 1979 and is also the lowest since 2011. It is down five points over the past year and comes just five [four] years after hitting a record high of 90% in January 2020, when economic confidence was at a 20-year high shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread closures that resulted in an economic collapse in the U.S….However, some groups of U.S. adults are still registering majority-level high satisfaction with their lives, including higher-income, married, more religious, and older Americans….”
There’s a piece in that last statement that I want us to focus on – how is it that religiosity raises our level of satisfaction? Could it be Religion’s focus on the satisfaction that comes from seeking God instead of worldly wares? We can start answering those questions with our reading from the Book of Isaiah. The last part of Isaiah is all about helping the Israelites rediscover the love of God which has sustained them in exile – and which will soon sustain them through the rebuilding of a destroyed Jerusalem. The writings remind them to not make the same mistake as their ancestors who sought satisfaction from lesser gods and from worldly possessions – and yet were never satisfied. The love of God satisfies in ways that no creature comfort can – the LORD says it this way, “…Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare…Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near….” In other words, in all of our striving and seeking satisfaction, we should remember to call on God who provides for us at no cost through grace.
The Apostle Paul tells the believers in Corinth that the God who cared for their ancestors in the wilderness of Sinai is the same God who cares for them. God gave their ancestors manna and quail, and sustained them in their wandering, but some were dissatisfied and died before reaching the Promised Land. Paul states clearly that “…God is faithful…when you are tempted, God [he] will provide a way out so that you can endure….”
Jesus has been interpreting the events of his day for his listeners. Right before our reading for today he has told them that they all need to repent. He then tells a parable of a fig tree that has not borne fruit for three years. The owner of the garden wants the gardener to remove it so that something more satisfying can be planted in its place. The gardener pleads for one more year to tend it intentionally – to feed and water it and give it one more chance to satisfy the owner. If that doesn’t work, the gardener replies, he will cut it down.
When we set our minds and hearts on worldly things, then we seek after that which cannot provide us with long-lasting satisfaction and fruitfulness. Researchers tell us that our motivation to constantly seek satisfaction comes from a place of discontent, a place of constant searching for that one thing which we don’t have that will bring us to a place of contentment and peace. However, our feeling of discontent can never be satisfied through acquisition. The only solution for our feelings of discontent is to come to the realization that we already possess everything that we really need – not necessarily everything we want, but everything we need. When we realize we have everything we need, then we find ourselves feeling contentment.
Dr. Brené Brown, states that her research defines contentment “as the feeling of completeness, appreciation and ‘enoughness’ that we experience when our needs are satisfied.” She goes on to say the following, “…Contentment is positively correlated with greater life satisfaction and well-being, and preliminary evidence shows that experiences of contentment might reverse the cardiovascular effects of negative emotions…on one of the instruments that measures contentment, 71 percent of the variation in life satisfaction is measured by the answer to one question [item]: ‘All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?’ This always leads to the age-old question: If we’re not satisfied with our life as a whole, does this mean we need to go get and do the stuff that will make us satisfied so we can be content, or does it mean we stop taking for granted what we have so we can experience real contentment and enoughness?...”
The writer of the last part of the Book of Isaiah gives us the answer to the age-old question that Dr. Brown asks. The writer says, “…Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?...Give ear and come to me; listen that you may live…my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;…” Paul and Jesus echo this answer to each of their audiences. The Almighty God who is greater than any other living entity, seeks constantly to provide what we need – in fact, God made an abundantly filled world that offers us “real” contentment and satisfaction if we will just stop and gratefully acknowledge all that we already have. No amount of money or worldly possessions can buy what God freely provides!
This is what the season of Lent is really all about. It is about the giving up of our trying and trying and trying and trying to find a human-made trinket or experience that will satisfy us, and instead, to seek the God who provides – our Jehovah Jireh. To take time to notice how each day of Spring new life is apparent. To take time to notice that all of this evolving beauty is provided free of charge and how it satisfies our souls in ways nothing else can. God provides for our every need, because the God who created us knows our every need.
All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? When we are seeking satisfaction from that which isn’t of God, then we find ourselves frustrated, cynical and constantly running after the contentment we long for - that continues to be just out of our reach. However, when we stop and notice our blessings, then we find that we feel grateful and satisfied – we find that feeling of “enoughness” that Dr. Brown mentioned. The Bible and the Gallup survey results tell us that seeking high-level satisfaction is about learning how to be grateful and content with what we already have and asking God to provide that which we need. Therefore, we can stop trying and trying and trying and trying to find satisfaction, because God’s amazing grace has already made it available to all God’s children. Amen and amen!