Thank you for stopping in to read my post today. I was wondering if you have had this kind of thought: “No matter what I have or do, I am not satisfied and lack contentment in my life.” If this describes you, I pray the Lord will speak to you through His Word today! If it describes someone else that you know, I prayerfully request that you share this post with them. In His Name, Eric

When our youngest, more social son, went to college, three hours away, we were not able to get together with him very often. With my pastoring and my wife working at our local elementary school, our entire week was full of responsibilities and commitments that had to be fulfilled.

After a three month separation, during a phone conversation, he mentioned that he was really feeling down. He said he didn’t understand it because he figured he had met and become friends with many of the student body! (Told you he was social!). We immediately expressed to him that he was experiencing those emotions because he was missing his family. For his entire life, the Lord and his family were the most integral parts of his existence. As parents, we totally supported our sons - attending band, jazz band, symphony orchestra concerts, show choir performances, or baseball games. Then, we filled in the “family” or “at home’ times with church, youth group, playing games, and being together!

Jumping into our topic, let’s begin with Ecclesiastes 3:11 from the Amplified Bible, “He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]--yet man cannot find out (comprehend, grasp) what God has done (His overall plan) from the beginning to the end.” ‘Beautiful’ in the Hebrew means good and excellent. (God doesn’t make any junk.). So, there is a longing in man’s heart which cannot be filled by anything except the presence of God.

Man, since the beginning of time has had needs and desires in their lives. Man has been on a never ending quest for what they believe will satisfy and bring them happiness.

From one side of the earth to the other, these needs and desires vary tremendously. In the Western world, where ‘prosperity’ has abounded, new college graduates were interviewed and asked what their goals included. Sadly, their response, basically, was “they wanted everything and they wanted it now.” Many simply want to have families and have a job where they have enough to provide homes, food, and clothing for them.

In other parts of the world, some entering adulthood would say they want (need) a bicycle to get to work or cows, chickens, and property so they could raise and feed a family. All of us, no matter where we are, need material things to live our life on this planet. There is nothing wrong with our ‘knowing’ what we need and ‘having’ what we need to sustain our lives here. God does provide all we need for our sustenance and journey on the planet. (Philippians 4:19 and Luke 12:22-28 and 31).

However, as we read in Ecclesiastes 3:11, no matter what our needs or desires, there is actually only one thing which will bring true satisfaction and contentment to our lives and that is, to have that place of longing and sense of purpose He has planted in our heart to be filled with Himself.

Job 5:8 and 9 (BSB) reads, “ However, if I were you, I would appeal to God and lay my cause before Him - 9 the One who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number.” Then, Romans 11:33 (BSB) reveals, “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and untraceable His ways.” You see, even though man was created in the image of God, it will take us an eternity to learn of Him and know Him. The depth of His riches, wisdom, knowledge, and wonders are unsearchable and untraceable for us!

God’s ways and plans always transcend our own. Isaiah 55:8 and 9 (ESV) reveals, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

A. Joy Dawson shared added insight into what verse 9 means in Kingdom Dynamics in the New Spirit Filled Life Bible:

“Light is more powerful than darkness.

Truth is stronger than error.

There’s more grace in God’s heart that sin in men’s hearts.

There’s more power in the Holy Spirit to convict men of sin than there is power of satanic forces to tempt men to sin.

There’s more power in one drop of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus to cleanse men’s hearts from the stain of sin than there is in the accumulated filth of men’s sin since Adam and Eve.”

Hallelujah!

The desire in our heart for God, which He placed in us, is also described as a ‘longing, yearning, thirst, or hunger,’ as seen in some of the following Scriptures:

Psalm 73:23-26 (BSB), “Yet I am always with You. You hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with counsel, and later receive me in glory. 24 Whom have I in heaven but You? And on earth I desire no one besides You, 26 My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Psalm 63:1 (NLT), “A psalm of David, regarding a time when David was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.”

Isaiah 26:9a (ESV) , “My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you…” ‘Yearns’ means: desires, craves, and lusts after in the Greek.

John 7:37-39 (NLT), “On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, "Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! 38 Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'" 39 (When he said "living water," he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.) ‘Thirsty’, dipsao in the Greek, figuratively means: those who painfully feel their want of, and eagerly long for those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, and strengthened. What is Jesus’ directive to the ‘thirsty’ when we need refreshment, support, or strength? “Come to me.” In a small portion of McLarens Expositions, we read this for verse 37, “Jesus was claiming to be able to meet every aspiration, every spiritual want, every true desire in this complex nature of ours. Jesus knew their deep thirsts, takes account of the impotence of anything created to satisfy them, assumes the divine prerogative and says, “I come to satisfy every desire in every soul, to the end of time.” We draw water from the fountain of salvation and it has never failed us.” We need Him!

Even though God created us in His image, so that we could have fellowship and commune with Him - when sin entered in the garden - that initial relationship with God and man was broken or severed, because sin separates us from God. God’s heart desire is that our relationship with Him be restored similarly to that which Adam and Eve experienced with Him before the fall.

God also desires that we would choose to fill that God shaped space in our heart with Him. He, as our Creator has reserved that space for Himself, and without Him, we will never be completely satisfied or content!

How can we do that? The way He has provided for us to be restored and redeemed from sin’s grip is in enabling us to choose to accept the sacrifice His Son, Jesus Christ made for us. You see, it is only from the gift of His own Son and the shedding of His blood that we can fill that void in our lives!

I hope you can fully grasp the amazing revelation God shares with us through His Word in Colossians 2:9 and 10 (NLT), “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” Because of the salvation we have through Christ, Who came in the fullness of the Godhead bodily, we as believers have been richly furnished with the power and gift of the Holy Spirit and rooted in Christ by virtue of the intimate relationship we can enter into with Him. (New Spirit Filled Life Bible textural notes). Verse 10 reveals that because Christ came with the fullness of the Godhead - we are complete or full - in Him!

According to gotquestions.org, “God did not create human beings because He needed them. As God, He needs nothing. He loves us but this is not the same as needing us. If we had never existed, God would still be God - the unchanging One. God created us for His pleasure and so that we would have the pleasure of knowing Him.”

Considering how weak we are and how often we miss the mark, and being aware of the absolute sovereignty and holiness of God, I am amazed to think of all that God planned and purposed in order for us to be able to have a beautiful personal relationship with Him. He even calls us friends! (John 15:14 and 15). Amazing!

So, thinking back to the beginning of our study, it is not earthly material things that we are to desire - what we need is Jesus!

Matthew 6:25,26,30,32b and 33 (NKJV) reads, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ... 30 "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? … 32b For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

We are children of God, and just as our son needed to ‘be’ with his family to feel satisfied and content during that time in which he was separated from us - we need to ‘be’ with the Father and Jesus to be satisfied and content. We don’t need bigger houses, expensive cars, new wardrobes every year, fame, or fortune - we need Him.

We have a dear friend who has had the supernatural experience of having died (for an hour and 45 minutes) and being in heaven with the Father and Jesus, before He was sent back by the Lord. One of the things he shared that really spoke to us was that “In heaven, everything is right.” Can you even imagine what that would be like? Believers have the promise of entering into that realm when He calls each one of us home. For now, being on the earth and facing difficulties, trials, and tribulations we have this promise in Philippians 4:7 (NKJV), “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

When we have Him in that “reserved, just for Him place”: in our hearts - He is all we need.

Our friend who spent time in heaven with the Father and Jesus is Dean Braxton. You can read or hear his story at his website: www.deanbraxton.com

BSB Berean Standard Bible

ESV English Standard Version

NLT New Living Translation

NKJV New King James Version