We are all seeking satisfaction in one way or another … aren’t we? It is a condition that is built into us.
Before God created us, He created an environment of great beauty, power and mystery … a place for us. In us, He created the abilities to interact and enjoy all of it. The Lord, in His great love for us has given so very much and yet we seek our satisfaction in other things … often the very gifts themselves.
The recent untimely demise of singer, Whitney Houston, reminds me of another singer who wailed, “Thou I try, and I try, and I try, and I try, I can’t get no satisfaction!” Here is a young girl who was given a gift from God … a voice like an angel … and continued to search for satisfaction in all the wrong places.
Are we much different than Whitney and Mick … are we much different than the Israelites in the days of Amos?
In the days of prophet, Amos, people had been given much and had turned to the pleasures of the day to gain their satisfaction. Thou they had been given great gifts by God, they had turned to worship of the gifts and not the giver. And, in so doing they had forgotten the provider and turned drastically away from Him.
In this day the covenant of God to provide for all of our needs, (Philippians 4:19) has never been more evident. But, if you’re like most of us, you’ve worked hard and have accumulated things, forgetting that the strength and ability to do this work has been a gift from Him.
James 1:17 – Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like sifting shadows.
Some of us have been able to acquire great wealth and wind up counting our money instead of counting on the giver of that wealth … the ever merciful and gracious God.
Many of us spend time in nature, hiking or traveling around this glorious land, the trees, the mountains, beautiful bodies of water, ever changing landscapes and we wind up hugging trees instead of thanking the Lord.
Many relish the power gained in their lives and deny that the abilities that brought them to the top of whatever pinnacle they are on were given by our Creator.
Many of us are wallowing in the pleasures of life provided by the Lord and racing off to worship those pleasures … those gifts and forgetting to take time to thank the Giver.
In the times of Amos, the Israelites prospered, but it is God who gave them the strength, knowledge and perseverance required to do everything they did, as vile as it had become. They had lost sight of the fact that He can just as easily take it all away.
At that time the punishment was put forth by the Lord thru Amos in chapter 8, “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. That famine eventually came and the Lord was silent for over 400 years.
The punishment of those who had worshiped the gifts of God but denied the existence of God was separation from God. Verse 12 states, “People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.” In that day “the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst."
Could we face that same punishment as our society, as our schools, as our leaders try to separate us further and further from the Lord? Without the Lord we have no anchor in our lives, we wander from this pleasure to that pleasure searching for meaning. As we continue to deny God in our lives, we lose our stability, we “become faint because of thirst.” Our soul thirsts for communion with its creator and we become faint of heart.
Let us all remember that God’s gifts are given to turn us TO GOD … not toward the GIFTS!
Once we are able to come to grips with this fact and we stop chasing after THINGS instead of GOD to make us happy, we will be like Paul who said in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”
Larry Abele - Editorial Team
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