Day 175- Thankful for Lack of satisfaction

“I took care of you in a dry, desert land. But when you entered the good land, you became full and satisfied, and then you grew proud and forgot me.” Hosea 13:5,6 GNT

How can this happen? Why is it that one minute we can be desperately crying out for God’s help, then when He gives it, we say, “Yes! I did it!”

Maybe our prayer was for success at school or at our job. Maybe it was for rescue from a bully. Maybe it was for enough money to put food on the table or to pay a bill. Or perhaps it was for reassurance that we are loved.

God rescued His people from slavery, led them, and miraculously fed them in the wilderness for 40 years.

But when He brought them into the promised land and gave each family their plot of land and pasture for their flocks, they became satisfied with the provision instead of the Provider. Suddenly they were thinking that they were providing for themselves. They forgot that it had all come from God and was completely a blessing from His hand.

As I mentioned in my last post, pride and forgetting God can lead to unkindness and the breakdown of relationships. Suddenly you hear phrases like “It’s mine! Don’t touch it!” (siblings), or “I earned this money; you have no say in how I spend it!” (teen to parent or even one spouse to another).

Our culture has become saturated with this same self-satisfaction and forgetting of God.

Multitudes have forgotten, and many downright refuse to believe, that all the blessings we have come from God.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

I don’t love suffering any more than the next person, but I have discovered that having a relationship with the God who CARES for us in all our troubles, and remembering His love daily, far surpasses any satisfaction we can have with the things He provides!

So, if having lack in some area brings us into a closer walk with the God who cares, then that lack is a blessing in disguise!

If I lack satisfaction in health, finances, friendship, family, or any other area, I can find my satisfaction in God and be filled with joy!

He is our greatest Joy, our most precious Treasure, our Provider, and our Strength!

Today I’m thankful for the lack of satisfaction that reminds me to cast my cares on God!

I’m thankful that He cares for me and wants a relationship with me!

What about you? Have you been discouraged because things have not been ideal lately? Have you cried out to God for help? Have you found Him to be the one Joy that surpasses all others? Won’t you seek to know Him today?