We just arrived home from a week’s cruise to the Caribbean with our family. If you’ve ever been on a cruise or spoken to people who have, then you know about the food. It’s fabulous! Every morning we woke to a huge breakfast buffet from which we could choose omelets, eggs in just about any way we liked them, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, pastries, an assortment of cereals and juices – and even GRITS, which I love, but can only get in the southern United States. Sad but true, isn’t it, all you fellow grits lovers out there?
Lunch was more of the same – salads, a sandwich bar, hot “themed” entrees (like Asian, American, Caribbean, etc.), fresh fruit, an assortment of cakes and pastries, 24/7 ice cream machines, and on and on. Both meals, by the way, could also be eaten in the formal dining room where you could be served by a very friendly wait staff.
There was also a buffet dinner every night, but we gathered as a family in the dining room where one of my sons in law ordered TWO shrimp cocktails every night, and we feasted on a variety of appetizers, entrees, and fabulous desserts unlike anything we have at home.
If by chance, you were hungry in between meals, there was 24 hour pizza and deli service, afternoon tea, an evening buffet, and even room service. And there was also an evening sushi bar, just in case. . .
The funny thing about all this is that we could have a HUGE meal of whatever we wanted, walk away from the table full, and then several hours later do it all over again. It was immediately evident that when it comes to food, we’re never really fully satisfied. No matter what or how much we eat, the truth is, in just a few hours time we’re going to be hungry again.
There are some good spiritual parallels here.
Food isn’t the only thing we hope will satisfy us. There are plenty of other things. For some it’s a fit body. . .a well paying job. . .financial security reflected in a substantial stock portfolio. . . .the pleasure afforded by vacations, or shopping, or drugs, or alcohol . . an ivy league education. . . a home of their own. . .a relationship. . . . toys like cars and boats and bigger houses and motorcycles and the latest technology, and probably a host of other things that could be listed.
What about you? What are you looking to for your satisfaction? How about listing the top 5, or maybe the top 10.
Let me ask you, are those things living up to your expectations, or are they just leaving you hungry for more?
My guess is that they do satisfy – for a while – but then, like getting hungry, when we finally think we’ve reach the place where we’re satisfied, that empty feeling rises up again and we find ourselves needing more, or something else. So we step up our workout for tighter abs. We send out our resume for a better paying job. We take another vacation, try a drug with a bigger kick, go out drinking more often, buy a new toy. We enroll in school for an advanced degree. We divorce our spouse in favor of a new relationship, and on and on.
David, before he was Israel’s king, and still wandering in the desert avoiding King Saul who wanted to take his life, said this in Psalm 63:1-5:
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”
Not much was going well for David at that time in his life but he could sing God’s praises because it was in relationship with Him that David found his soul satisfaction and that relationship did not depend on favorable circumstances. So long as David was looking to the Lord, his soul was satisfied.
The people of Israel were often just like us - dissatisfied, not interested in a relationship with God, not really seeing the need for Him. God had chosen Israel to be His very own possession, set apart and holy. He had chosen them to be in unique relationship with Himself. Wow! Imagine that?
The Living, All Powerful, Creator God, Maker of the Universe, chose them to be His own people – not because they were better than any other people, but just because God is God and they were His choice. He gave them an amazing and privileged assignment - to introduce Him to the nations around them – through their words, and worship, and godly lifestyle.
The relationship was great for a while, and even though God kept His promises to them, eventually God just wasn’t enough for the people of Israel. They took their eyes off Him and began looking for something else. The nations around them seemed to be having a lot more fun, so instead of continuing in relationship with the God who loved them, the people of Israel abandoned the Lord and turned to the gods and customs of other nations, hoping that they might satisfy the way a relationship with God would. But it didn't - and the consequences were disastrous.
Israel was no longer a light to the nations. We might say that Israel began to “blend”, so that it wasn’t possible to tell them apart from the godless nations surrounding them. And the funny thing was that the new gods didn’t satisfy them either – their worship of other gods in defiance of God’s command just led them farther and farther away from the One who had chosen them to be His own.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, sent to both the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom Israel for the specific purpose of calling them back into relationship with God, said this in chapter 55, verse 2:
“Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”
The Israelites had bread. That bread may have been satisfying them physically, but they had leanness of soul. God wanted to feed them with Himself so that they would find their satisfaction in Him – like the satisfaction of a wonderful, rich, and satisfying meal.
But they would not have Him, nor would they listen to the warnings of Isaiah, and in the end, they went into exile. The northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and was never again a viable nation. Only the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin would ultimately survive and return to Jerusalem.
This would be incredibly sad and bad (and it was) had Isaiah left them with warnings of judgment alone, but he didn’t. He left them words of consolation and hope by unfolding God’s promise of future blessing through the Messiah who would make it possible for reconciliation between the people of Israel and God.
God fulfilled that promise in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John’s gospel, chapter 6, verses 35, 48, 51:
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. . . . . I am the bread of life. . . the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”
Jesus referred to Himself as the "bread of life", the “bread” that fully satisfies – as with the richest of foods. A spiritual “bread” that doesn’t leave us hungry for more. The bread that leaves us with “fat” souls!
So if you find yourself on a continual quest for more, and better, and different - but still find yourself on empty, maybe what’s missing in your life is Jesus, the only One in whom you will truly find soul satisfaction - the kind of satisfaction you get when you've eaten the BEST dinner EVER.
Read again David's words from Psalm 63:
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”
If you're running on empty, do what David did - earnestly seek Jesus, thirst for Him, long for Him, consider that His love is better than life. Find your satisfaction in Jesus alone and you will be truly satisfied.
No comments:
Post a Comment