Why It’s Okay to Lack Satisfaction in Life
It’s a spring-like winter day, and I offer the kids a trip to visit the calves at the neighboring farm. I’m not really thinking about satisfaction in life, but our time under open skies is about to reframe my perspective on winter and on life in general.
This time of year, the once-lush fields are dingy with winter. Corn stubble blankets hazel earth, and the verdant clover is drab and beige.
We walk beneath grey skies, and from some precisely placed break in the clouds, a fiery sun blazes coral as it slips toward the horizon. We’re walking westward, and it seems we’re chasing down the light.
“The sun sure looks funny tonight,” Bekah says, reading my thoughts as usual.
Before I have time to respond, she says, “Maybe Jesus is coming on the clouds, and this is how it looks as he gets closer.”
Why We Struggle to Find Satisfaction in This Life
She’s been thinking of this often lately.
When the towering cumulonimbus clouds form their cauliflower heads, she’s sure he’ll come on clouds that look just like them. When the high cirrus clouds form wispy feather fingers against blue so clear you could drink it, she decides these clouds would be most fitting.
“I still don’t get how everyone in the world is going to see him at the same time,” she says, stopping to look for slow-moving winter frogs at the mouth of a pond by the road.
“I don’t know either, babe,” I say, and before I can elaborate, we’re somehow talking about springtime and tadpoles and where we put the frog-catching nets.
Why You Might Lack Satisfaction in Life
Our walk gets me thinking, though.
Winter makes me long for long summer evenings lying in the backyard while the neighbor boys join the kids in the sandbox. I long for warm sun on my skin, luxuriant rolling fields of emerald, and watching summer rain showers from the shelter of the red barn down the road.
Winter makes me long for seasons when I sense a deeper kind of satisfaction in life.
And then summer comes, and I’m filled with joy.
However, by the end of August, I’m ready for autumn. I’m ready for leaf piles, counting pumpkins on our way to soccer practice, and mums on doorsteps.
And as the seasons roll on, there are moments of sheer joy. But there are also moments when I admit to myself that I’m utterly unsatisfied with my life.
I struggle with a lack of fulfillment, a desire for something more, something I can’t quite name. I feel like I’m chasing a kind of abundance I might never find.
It dawns on me as we wait for Jesus to come riding through the glowing swell in the thick canopy of grey clouds: It’s entirely healthy and okay that I can’t find the satisfaction I crave in this life.
We all lack satisfaction in life because we were made for more than this life.
God made us for more than just this life. He designed us to live in a face-to-face relationship with him. He created us for the kind of relationship Adam and Eve enjoyed before sin separated them in the garden.
God created us for heaven, and this earth will never entirely be home. It is okay to live with a holy longing for heaven, a burning desire to behold the face of God and bow before his throne. Nothing else will satisfy.
What to do when you lack satisfaction:
Are you feeling dissatisfied with the way your life is turning out?
There are plenty of things you can do to get on track. (Read here for a list of 11 ways to find replenishment.)
Nevertheless, when you still crave more, maybe it’s time to fan the flame of hunger.
Maybe it’s time to let the fire of desire burn, realizing that it’s a passion to encounter God and look into his face.
Maybe it’s time to let the dissatisfaction drive you to your knees in prayer, dig into a Bible with an expectation that he has something to say to you, and live with an ever-present longing for heaven.
~~~
We make it to the neighbors’ farm, pet the calves for a long while, and when we turn for the homeward journey, the flaming ball on the horizon has vanished.
“I was really hoping he was coming back today,” Bekah says, disappointed.
“Me too,” I agree. “Me too.”
A Free Devotional for When You Lack Satisfaction in Life:
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Calling All Moms and Daughters!
Additionally, my 12-year-old daughter, Bekah, and I wrote a mother-daughter devotional book to help mothers and daughters grow closer together while connecting with God. Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith includes 60 devotions with Scripture, commentaries from both of us, conversation starters, and even a shared journaling section. Multitudes of mothers, daughters, mentors, and younger women are being transformed by this book! You can find this book in eBook form for free on the Kindle Unlimited Plan or buy a print copy for 11.99 right here.
