Satisfaction

THURS., JULY 20, 1989, 12:31 PM
FINE ARTS, SYNOD SCHOOL

Satisfaction is what you are feeling as this week draws to a close. It has developed and happened in ways as fine as you expected. Your class has been a marvelous experience, and you have taken the opportunities as you should. You got a chance to do lots of singing, and you should feel satisfied with that. All in all, it has been an experience of nearly all satisfaction.

Satisfaction is an interesting concept in Christian perspective. One Christian way of seeing life evokes little satisfaction. Virtually everything you do… or don’t do… has a sinful quality to it. You can never measure up to the standards set by Jesus words and actions, let alone the various commandments, laws, and proclamations of the Old Testament. In this perspective you can never be satisfied, for you can never live life as it should be lived.

Translating that to this scene, you haven’t met everyone you should, and you haven’t found out about people the way you should. You have passed by many opportunities to get better acquainted and thus to serve others. You have not selected songs as well as you should. Or… maybe you have been too “pushy” and not humble enough. How can you feel satisfied with honest observations such as these?

Luckily, the Christian view I encourage you to take allows for, even encourages, much satisfaction. When you are in active relationship with Me and offer your life to Me, I lovingly accept who you are and what you offer. The only criterion is relationship with Me. You can feel some dis-satisfaction in not being more dedicated, but the overriding feeling should be satisfaction with what you do and do accomplish.

There were times, years back, when you felt only minimal satisfaction as a parent. Now your feelings are much better, as you see your sons contributing well to their worlds and to their children. Three are in good relationship with My Triune Self (not with Me, the Holy Spirit, as you are), even as Matthew is still rather far away. You must reply to John Patrick’s card, for that was a maximum example of a satisfying receipt, and it will be more satisfying to him to know that you are more than satisfied with his expression. He will even appreciate that I suggested you do this… using the word “must.”

You can be dissatisfied with your garden… and then satisfied that you’re doing as much as you have time for. (1:04 / 1:09) You can do more, but never trade in completely the satisfaction that is deserved for what you do make grow.

I encourage you to feel satisfaction with your teaching style and approaches. Be satisfied that you are not outstanding, even as a few students will declare that you are. Strive to improve… or to do well what you do… and feel honest satisfaction at the end of a course.

Now you can’t truly feel satisfaction about your current writing and publishing. I have urged you to write more, and you have not. In this sense you have failed. Yet your priority piece is the Ruminations, and satisfaction is the appropriate feeling about that. You might be able to write more if you came to Me less often. I do not recommend that. I am satisfied with your faithfulness to this opportunity/task.

You are more than satisfied with your marriage, though you know ways you could be a better husband. Lenore is a good wife for you, and she is more satisfied with you than not. Your strength comes from being loved. Use some of that strength in being more as she would have you be.