Gold Nugget 156 - Satisfaction
There are many obvious sources of satisfaction. Life has many pleasures, and many happy activities, and much coveted treasure. Human affection, congenial employment, the pursuit of knowledge, “the joys of contest,” the excitements of the field of sport, the attainment of ambition, etc.
All of them together fail to satisfy the heart. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, nor the tongue with tasting, nor the hand with handling, nor the mind with investigating and discovering. All the streams of temporal and worldly pleasure run into the sea of the human soul, but they do no fill it. The heart, on whatsoever it feeds, is still a-hungered, is still athirst. It may seem surprising that when so much that was craved has been possessed and enjoyed, that when so many things have ministered to the mind, there should still be heart-ache, unrest, spiritual disquietude, the painful …
The profundity, the commonness and constancy of this complaint, is a very baffling and perplexing problem. We surely ought to be satisfied, but we are not. The unillumined mind cannot explain it, the uninspired tongue “cannot utter it.” What is the solution? …
Its solution is not far to see; it is found in the truth so finely uttered by Augustine, “O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart findeth no rest until it resteth in thee.” The human spirit, created in God’s image, constituted to possess his own spiritual likeness, formed for truth and righteousness, intended to spend its noble and ever-unfolding powers in the high service of the Divine, - is it likely that such a one as this, that can be so much, that can know so much, that can love the best and highest, that can aspire to the loftiest and the purest well-being, can be satisfied with the love that is human, with the knowledge that is earthly, with the treasure that is material and transient?
The marvel is, and the pity is, that man, with such powers within him and with such a destiny before him, can sometimes sink so low as to be filled and satisfied with the husks of earth, unfilled with the bread of heaven.
The Pulpit Commentary, Ecclesiastes p.22, Ecclesiastes 1:7-8, (W. Clarkson)
Gold Nugget 156
Satisfaction
