by Rhonda j. smith
For years I struggled with the longing, the aching, the wanting to be where God wants me to be, satisfied with Him. But I wasn’t, haven’t been, and learning to be has taken an unimaginable toll on me that I never thought possible. How could the God of the universe, the one who unlocks secrets to me, died on the cross for me, suffered and bled for me, sees me, in all my mess and glory and loves me still, still not be enough for me? How can that be? How can it be that His being all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, ever fragrant, leaves me wanting, sniffing for more? His beauty doesn’t embrace, hold me or my attention the way an all-sufficient God is capable of doing. It’s not that He doesn’t do it. It’s just that His embrace is often just not what I want, what I think I should have.
That was my confession two years ago, a passage from a journal entry that mirrored earlier iterations of the same sentiment first fleshed out about 20 years ago after a revelation in my discipleship group. We were studying the workbook Breaking Free: Making Liberty in Christ a Reality in Life by Beth Moore and the premise of the study is that most Christians don’t enjoy life to the full, but when we do, we will experience five benefits, one of them being finding satisfaction in God. As Moore explained that our soul and spirit—our entire being—should desire nothing more than the Lord Jesus, the definition of being satisfied in God, my heart dropped with the weight of guilt, knowing that the person she described was not me!
Instead of wallowing in my guilt, I got busy examining myself to see why what I was doing wasn’t yielding transforming results. Sure, I had checked all the right boxes: had daily prayer, meditation and journal time; attended church, bible study and my discipleship group; and fasted weekly. I checked the boxes, but the items the boxes represented weren’t checking me, on the inside, until that day. The word that day convicted me to face what I, an upstanding, checking all the right boxes, good Christian woman, didn’t want to see. I was striving to do right instead of allowing the Lord to work on making me right. I was focused on the doing but the doing wasn’t making me be right.
I continued in my disciplines, because that’s what I knew to do, and cried out to the Lord to make me different. Nothing happened right away, but I noticed over the years that a pattern of stripping emerged: quit your job; throw away that artwork; cut your hair; disengage from this group; quit leading that ministry; stop watching that show. Relatives parted; friendships waned; and my life was new on the outside, but I still struggled on the inside. When you get things stripped away it’s easier to see what’s left before you, and for me it was the Lord and my mind. In these moments of lack, I was able to see just how faithful the Lord was to me, and I still had my mind to praise Him. The Lord knew that each of the items, activities and people stripped from me had filled my life, gave me comfort, and I depended on them for such. The Lord led me to strip them and allowed things to be stripped from me because He knew that they were blocking space where He needed to dwell. For too long, things of this world had filled me. I needed to be stripped, empty, so there was room for God to fill me, so that I was satisfied with Him and Him alone.
Progressively, my struggle faded as I continued with my disciplines, not to check boxes but to allow those disciplines to check me. With each prayer, Bible study and fast, I examined myself to check my motives. I asked why the thing that had been stripped gave me comfort and why the Lord didn’t bring me comfort. I set my affections on things above and not things on the earth because I believed the word that if I follow after the Spirit, I wouldn’t fulfill the lust of my flesh (Colossians 3:2; Galatians 5:16).
Consecration is crucial to learning to be satisfied with God. There is a stripping that takes place during consecration. You are stripped of external things to make room for you to be filled with internal things. The most important internal things are already there, but you must be filled with them. Filled with the word that sparked you to make the decision for Christ. Filled with the Holy Spirit so you are saturated with His guidance. So, use this consecration to help you examine yourself. It is not a time for you to compare yourself to how others are faring, but it is a time to really examine your heart and what corrections you need to make if you find other things are satisfying you above the Lord.
It took me about 20 years to be able to say in truth that I am satisfied with God, but for anyone struggling with this, it doesn’t have to take you that long. Follow spiritual disciplines, but always examine your heart. When God shows you that your affections are misfocused, you can confess that to spiritual friends so they can pray for you so that you are healed from continually falling prey to finding satisfaction in your flesh (James 5:16). Allow this consecration to set you apart unto the Lord for a transformed heart so you are truly satisfied with God.