Satisfaction

“I can’t get no sa-tis-faction”. That’s the way the song goes, right? It’s one of those random songs that everyone knows it really makes no sense at all if you think about it.

To be honest, so many of those older songs don’t make sense at all. Take Yellow Submarine for example. I mean, what is that song really about? “We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine”. No one actually lives in a submarine. They might exist in one, certainly. We all can exist in one but living connotes that you take up more than just existence, that you make it your permanent place of residence. And no one would do that in a submarine. It simply is not possible. Plus I think you would eventually go mad from the claustrophobia.

Anyway, tangent aside, last night I heard a sermon preached on satisfaction and it caused me to wonder. The precise message of the sermon was along the lines that satisfaction is your enemy. It’s the enemy of your soul, the enemy of revival, the enemy of the pursuit of greatness. And that message is true. But the whole goal of our lives appears to be satisfaction, right? We climb persistently and insistently toward the top of a mountain we really can’t even name and our intent is to reach that goal. Reaching that goal will satisfy us. Satisfaction is what the American Dream was built around – the idea that a two story house in the suburbs with the nuclear family intact and a dog and a cat will bring you contentment. That American dream is supposed to settle your longing for more and I think for many people it does.

But what about the others? There existed in times past and to be sure, these people exist today, a selection of people who were not content to remain idly by. Who believed the world would be better if dreams were pursued and spectacular plans made and carried out. Many of these people history writes down to madness. And yes, I’m sure some of them were. Some had ideas that were reprehensible, yet pursued passionately. We remember them by the tragedies that followed in their wakes – the Red Terror, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Crusades, the list continues. These people were not satisfied but reached for the wrong things. Success in their minds was an evil and twisted picture.

What happens though, when people are not satisfied with the good that surrounds them and pursue betterment (the right kind) relentlessly? I would wager to say that beauty happens. The crossing of the Pilgrims to America, the creation of the Constitution of the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation, the scores of music that have been written since the dawn of time, and the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling…there are always beautiful things that were created by people who were not content to just be ordinary.

To not just be ordinary, to reject satisfaction and the status quo, one must give of themselves. It’s not enough to pronounce yourself extraordinary. It’s not enough to take that label and affix it to yourself in the hopes that speaking the word will fulfill the prophecy, no, one must act. One must dream and not listen to the naysayers. Naysayers sit on the walls and croak out things and words of discouragement. Or worse, a naysayer will encourage you but not actually mean anything by it.

In addition to ignoring the naysayers, we must not naysay ourselves. We must feel the urge to be better deep down inside. We all must have the drive to seek more, to be better, the fire must come from within before it can flame into someone else’s life. There is no point in thinking about a fire if you cannot keep it burning inside yourself.

Another thing about not seeking satisfaction is learning that sometimes the biggest dreams come true in the smallest ways. In fact, I think they usually come true in that fashion. How many times has a pastor dreamed of a thousand-soul revival? Probably several hundred thousand times over the course of human existence. But note that the thousand soul revival did not come with a bang, it came with a small series of explosions. A Bible study taught here, an all-night prayer meeting there, a day-long fast done once a week. Nothing big was ever built on big things. Even Rome was built not in a day, but in a series of loads of bricks and mortar and one person at a time. Nothing that was done for God was done in one big bang and then the process was complete. Even David had to kill a lion and a bear before he could kill a giant. There is always a season of preparation that a dreamer must go through.

The road to satisfaction should end at Heaven’s pearly gates. It simply won’t do to reach the threshold before then.