3 THINGS THAT WILL NEVER SATISFY YOU

No matter who you are, where you live and what you do, there is one constant among men; the pursuit of satisfaction! We all want to be satisfied in life, from the person who kills another, to the one who takes his own life. The ultimate reason we do what we do is because we want to be satisfied. The difference lies in where and how we try to fill this craving for satisfaction, some pursue it in church, others in mosques, yet others in night clubs, most in money, some in relationships and a majority in material wealth. Sadly despite the daily pursuit of satisfaction a lot of people are not satisfied, they are still empty inside and their life is one sad journey of chasing after the wind.

The bible gives us an excellent case study of a person who pursued satisfaction in every avenue that he possibly could and still come up short. This man is called Solomon king of Israel. The amount of gold he received annually is worth anything from 1.5 to 2 billion dollars and the man ruled for 40 years! If Solomon lived in our day he could easily be among the top two richest people. The richest at the moment is worth 83 billion dollars. With all the wealth at his disposal, Solomon vainly pursued satisfaction in 3 ways;

GRATIFYING HIS PLEASURES- Ecclesiastes 2:1-3

The man tried his best to fulfill any kind of pleasure that his body longed for. He indulged his sexual desires by marrying 700 wives and had 300 concubines. He tells us that he tried to cheer himself with wine and all kinds of entertainment but to no avail. Today we have all forms of entertainments movies, series, comedies, sports; some go for parties and clubbing where they expect everyone to be laughing, drink alcohol to drown their sorrows, etc. Yet we can never have enough, we always want more.

ENGAGED IN PROJECT- Ecclesiastes 2: 4-8

The second source of satisfaction he went to were projects. And he goes into great detail about what those projects involved – building houses, planting vineyards, gardens, parks and all kinds of fruit trees, making reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees, buying slaves, owning herds and flocks, amassing silver and gold, acquiring men and women singers, having “. In the light of these projects, he became greater by far than anyone who ever lived in Jerusalem before him. And he clearly was successful at his projects, but they still did not quench his pursuit of satisfaction.

THE POWER OF POSITION- Ecclesiastes 2:9-11

Solomon sought greatness and he found it. He became the greatest and most powerful person of his day; you could say he was a modern day celebrity. And as a might king had the power to get anything he wanted.  He tells us that he denied himself nothing that his eyes desired. He refused his heart no pleasure. He made sure he found joy in everything he did. So, to the outside world, his smile was a cause of no small envy. Yet, he admits that when he stood aside for some quiet meditation, it is striving after the wind. His still craved for lasting satisfaction, for the void was still there.

Is this not what has often shocked the world with our Hollywood film stars? One moment, they are smiling at us from the covers of glossy magazines, but in the next they commit suicide. What happened to those smiles we envied? The truth is God has put a void in every human soul that he alone can fill. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.  Many try to fill that void with the world’s pleasures and find them to be broken cisterns. Are you still on that path? Do not waste your life. True lasting satisfaction is only found in God!