If God Satisfies, Then Why Am I Not Satisfied?

One of the greatest desires of humanity is to be content. We are driven to find peace and satisfaction. Often, the choices and changes we make in life are rooted in our need to be satisfied. We pursue new marriages and new jobs and new homes and new churches, trying to move from discontent to content.

And this need to be satisfied is divinely instilled in us. God created us to want, to long, to need. But he also created us to have those wants and longings and needs met in and through Him. Thus enters humanities greatest problem and challenge: fulfilling God-given needs with man-made solutions leaving us constantly unsatisfied. We enter into marriages believing that will satisfy our need to be loved. We build up a financial portfolio believing that will satisfy our need to have security and peace. We invest years and years into a career that we believe will give us a sense of purpose. And then we are disheartened and discouraged when the thing we thought would satisfy us leaves us once again dissatisfied.

The need is real but the attempts to meet that need leave us wanting. This can leave us believing the lie that we can’t know true contentment. And so we simply settle for temporary, surface-level satisfactions never expecting or assuming that our soul can truly be fulfilled. And yet that God-given need keeps us saying, ‘there has to be something more to this life than what I am doing.”

In Psalm 63, David recognizes that his soul has a thirst. And he also recognizes that there is only one who can quench that thirst. In verse 1 he says that his soul thirst for God. And then in verse 5, he says his soul will be satisfied in God.

We don’t have to settle for surface-level satisfactions that keep us longing. David writes there is a fulfillment we can experience at our soul level. From a Christian perspective, we probably all acknowledge this to be true. I imagine we all believe that our soul is ultimately satisfied in God and God alone. but if we all believe that is true, then why are there so many dissatisfied Christians. Why are so many Christians trying to find fulfillment in the same way the world does?

I believe it is because our theology and our practice are at odds. We say ‘The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” and then we turn around and try to become our own shepherd. We try to find our own still waters to drink from. We try to find our own green pastures to rest in. And then we wonder why we are so discontented. And the answer is we were never meant to be our own shepherds. And we were never meant to be satisfied in the temporary things of this world that our own shepherding can provide.

If it is through the True Shepherd we are satisfied, then we must bring ourselves under the True Shepherd. David talks about how we do this in Psalm 63:5-6 where he writes that his soul will be satisfied in God when “I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night.”

Here is the key to true soul-level contentment.

When we are discontented and dissatisfied, when does it often weigh on us the most? When we are in a place where we are left with just us and our thoughts. This often occurs at nighttime or bedtime. It is often in the quietness of these times that the worries of this world can flood our minds and overwhelm us. And so David is saying, it is in these moments that he does not allow his mind and heart to be filled with discontent but rather with the love of God. It is in his communion with God that his soul is satisfied

That is what communion with God through prayer does – it reminds us of who alone can fulfill our longings. It allows us to trust in Him with all of our heart and not lean on our own understandings. It allows us to be still before God and be reminded that he and he alone is sufficient to satisfy our soul.

Our soul was created to sit before God and be filled by Him.

And yet the greatest tragedy for many Christians is that set aside time to be in communion with God is rare. We fill up our mornings through evening with busyness so that we are lucky if we can get 1-minute of stillness and quietness before God.

And then we wonder why we are often left unsatisfied. We wonder why we are consumed with worry and discontent. We are thirsty and yet we do not take the time of drink of the Lord. We are hunger and yet we do not take the time to feast on the Lord.

In verse Psalm 63:8 David gives us another picture of what it looks like to have communion with God. He writes, “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” I love these words. It is such an intimate picture of our relationship with God. Those words sum up what prayer is: our soul clinging to God. That is how we are satisfied. Our every longing, our every hope, our every dream is brought before God as we recognize we are desperate for him and him alone to satisfy us.

Every parent knows the experience of a child clinging to them. It is the picture of complete dependence. The tighter the child holds on they more they have a sense of security. But while the child is holding on for dear life, what they are also hoping for is for the parent to hold them tightly back. And this is the full picture that David is giving to us. Our ultimate hope isn’t that we are clinging to God but as David writes in verse 8 that God is holding us. That is how we truly develop intimacy with God is when we recognize that our life is not held by us but by God. It is recognizing that our needs are not met through our ability but through His. And we are able to come under the True Shepherd and say because you lead me, I shall not want.

Are you a child of God and yet dissatisfied? Do you wonder if it is truly possible to know that supernatural peace that Scripture writes about? Do you wonder if your soul’s thirst could be truly quenched? If you wrestle with those questions (which by the way, we all have wrestled with those questions) then let David’s desire become your desire: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

Make Him the one you are holding onto to as you rest in the reality that he is holding you.