Where does your satisfaction lie?
My husband reminded me lately that my satisfaction needs to come solely from God. Both of us come from a broken world with broken people who hurt each other and can’t love each other perfectly. We try the best we can in our humanness, but only God can give me everything–plus more–that my husband cannot.
Whether you are still waiting for your special guy, dating, engaged, or married, Jesus needs to be your loving bridegroom. He is the only one who can perfectly and wholly satisfy your every desire and need.
Our Need for Satisfaction
He will quiet us with His love and rejoice over us with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
When we’re suffering from chronic illness, a lot is taken away from us. Life looks completely different for us compared to a person who is not suffering from health issues. If you have a chronic illness and are married, or if your spouse has a chronic illness, your marriage will have its own set of unique challenges. You can’t satisfy each other the way someone with or without illness could.
For example, you can’t be as spontaneous. You must hold your plans loosely, not knowing how you’re going to feel. The romance might look different. These things can cause feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and despair.
The same can apply in your day-to-day relationships–for instance, having to say “no” to hanging out because you’re too tired or know it will trigger you. This is just one example of how living with chronic illness can be lonely, no matter the relationships affected.
Which leads us to ask, if the simple enjoyments of life have been taken away from us against our own will, where do we get our satisfaction from?
We are meant to be satisfied by Jesus’ lovingkindness, first, foremost, and always. In Psalm 90:14, the psalmist writes,
Oh satisfy us in the morning with your lovingkindness.
God loves us so much and longs to be our satisfaction. If we are looking somewhere else or to someone to satisfy us, we are completely missing God’s design for us.
A Picture of Satisfaction
Marriage in itself is a reflection of Christ’s love for the church. Through marriage God shows us how He desires to have a close, intimate relationship with us. As James writes in his epistle,
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.
James 4:8
Marriage and intimacy were created as a picture of Christ’s love for us and our relationship with Him. Jesus is already our loving bridegroom. In fact, the book of Hosea with its story of Hosea’s love for his straying wife offers a portrait of how much God loves His people and wants them to come back to Him.
As Hosea’s story teaches us, in order for us to be fully satisfied in Christ, we have to first accept His love, then let Him into our hearts. We come to Him vulnerable, bare, hearts open ready to listen to Him and for Him to care for us.
How do we open our hearts, though, when we feel so much pain? Remember, God is love, the author of love, and the perfecter of it!
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
I John 4:7-8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
In the book Wholehearted Marriage, the authors write:
When we open our hearts to God, we receive His love. He then fills our hearts abundantly full of His love. Our hearts are full of God’s love, we then open our hearts and share love with others. His love passes through me from God to others… The key is to understand that the ultimate source of love is God. We cannot even love God until He fills our hearts with His love. The condition for loving others is first to experience God’s own love.
The Wholehearted Marriage by Dr. Greg Smalley and Dr. Shawn Stoever
The Joy of Satisfaction
Whether you are single, dating, engaged, or married, let Jesus be your loving bridegroom. No guy will ever be able to satisfy you the way God can–only God can satisfy you.
Let Him into your heart. Ask Him to be your loving bridegroom, to wrap you in His loving arms, to encourage and strengthen your heart. God loves you with an everlasting love and longs for your heart!
Do you recognize that no human relationship can satisfy you fully? Are you finding your satisfaction first and foremost in God? If not, what are some ways you show your need to Jesus and let Him fill you?
The Valley 