Satisfied

With great shame I confess that motherhood frequently brings out the worst in me. I am appalled at the ugliness of my heart. Sins that pride had convinced me were conquered or nonexistent have manifested themselves in ways I never thought possible. I am grieved by my impatience, anger, bitterness, frustration, selfishness—I could go on—toward the dear ones the Lord has entrusted to me. 

 

I am supposed to be a little Christ to my children, a model of His character, a channel for His love. How often I fail! Yet how often have I found forgiveness and grace before the throne of God! I pray, pleading for victory over my flesh. I read His Word, and He teaches me and sanctifies me. 

 

Only as I abide in Christ will His love control me, subduing my fleshly impulses and enabling me to respond in a manner pleasing to God. But I cannot abide in Him unless I am satisfied with Him. I need to believe that Christ alone is capable of fulfilling my most intimate desires. I must come to Him, trusting that His provision will meet my deepest needs.

When His will becomes my ambition, His glory my motivation, His kingdom my desire, when I would rather meet with Him than attend to my personal hobbies and interests, when earthly entertainments and amusements seem dull and unattractive in comparison to the Living Word, then will I have the proper mindset to instruct my children in the way that they should go and to properly demonstrate the joyous outcome of obedience and submission which I am striving to instill in them.

~

Come to Christ, you who are weary of trying to satisfy yourself, and He will give you rest, fulfilling your every desire. Serve Him in submission and obedience, uniting your heart to His with a willingness to learn and grow, and you will be comforted by His gentle compassion. Service to Christ is neither enslaving nor burdensome (Matthew 11:28-30) because His joy is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10), His peace surpasses human comprehension (Philippians 4:7), His grace is sufficient, and His power is magnified when you are weak and incapable of accomplishing your mission (2 Corinthians 12:9).

If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you shall be satisfied (Matthew 5:6), because God promises that He will not withhold anything good from them that seek Him and walk uprightly (Psalm 34:10, 84:11). He is gracious and merciful, providing food for those who fear Him (Psalm 111:4-5). He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with good things (Psalm 103:5, 107:9; Isaiah 55:2c). He is able to bring you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things (Jeremiah 2:7a). All you have to do is come (Isaiah 55:1-3)!

Come to the waters!

Come!

Come!

Listen!

Eat!

Delight!

Incline your ear!

Come to me!

Hear!

Make the Lord your portion (Psalm 16:5). He has prepared a table before you (Psalm 23:5). Satisfy the appetites of your soul with these eternal pleasures (Psalm 16:11) rather than with the dainties the world offers. Come, feast upon Him, delight in Him, and you shall not hunger, for He is the Bread of Life (John 6:35).

Make Him your cup (Psalm 16:5). Everyone who drinks from the well of worldly pleasure will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that Christ offers will never thirst. The water that He gives will become in your soul a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14). Those who taste of this eternal spring will see that Christ is good (Psalm 34:8a). 

 

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Christ and drink. Out of the hearts of those who believe in Him will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38). For those who thirst and faint for Him, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1), He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. In this place He lets the hungry dwell (Psalm 107:35-36). He leads them beside still waters (Psalm 23:2).

Christ's flesh is true food, and His blood is true drink (John 6:55). When you feed on the Word that became flesh and delight in Him, meditating day and night on His laws (John 1:14; Psalm 1:2), you become like Him, no longer judging others and speaking in ways that are dishonoring to God. You pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desires of the afflicted (Isaiah 58:9-10). You visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and deny yourself the sinful pleasures of the world (James 1:27). You allow the Lord to guide and strengthen you and satisfy your desires even when your circumstances afford no joy. In Him alone you find the fulfillment of joy (Psalm 16:8,11; 18:1; John 15:11).

 

He is your cup that overflows (Psalm 23:5). You become like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail (Isaiah 58:11), and like a tree planted by streams of water, that sends out its roots by the streams, that unceasingly yields its fruit in its season, whose leaves remain green and do not wither, who does not fear when heat comes, and is not anxious in the year of drought (Psalm 1:3; Jeremiah 17:8). The righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar. . .They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. Even in old age, they bear the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. They are ever full of sap and green so that they may continue to declare that the Lord is upright, that He is our Rock in whom is no unrighteousness (Psalm 92:12-15; Galatians 5:22-23).

What wrong did [you] find in Christ that [you] went far from Him, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless (Jeremiah 2:5)? Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy (Isaiah 55:2a) when God is offering the Bread of Life freely (Isaiah 55:1)? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food (Isaiah 55:2b). Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you (John 6:27). Do not indulge in anything that is spiritually worthless (Psalm 101:3). Feast upon that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable with excellent qualities and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8). Remember the Lord as you lay in bed. Meditate on Him in the quiet hours of the night, and your soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food (Psalm 63:5-6). Feast upon the Bread of Life because those who eat of it shall not die but will live forever (John 6:51)!