This pastoral passage was first written for LRBC on November 8 2015.

In Psalm 90:14 it is written “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” It might be worth considering why the writer (Moses) wrote this. He led a people for many years who were prone to complaint rather contentment. Rather than give thanks for what they had and look patiently to him for what they still lacked, they forgot their blessings and fumed about their dissatisfaction. We might be more level-headed than they were, but the satisfaction in God’s love is an attainment in Christian spirituality I think many of us are yet to arrive at.

Why might it be hard to be satisfied and stay satisfied in God’s love? It could be because we are used to desires being met only temporarily: we eat only to become hungry again. We drink only find ourselves thirsty once more. We sleep knowing we’ll be tired again the next day. Jesus did point out that when we eat we will become hungry again, but that he is the ‘true bread’  that satisfies permanently: he gives life and sustenance not for a day but for eternity (John 6). Perhaps the transient satisfaction of physical things is meant to create in us a desire for something that is permanently satisfying. But maybe we are so spiritually inept that we still continue to seek fresh satisfaction when really we ought to learn to rest continually in what God has for us already? Let us strive to be content with the love God has for his people, so that we may be glad in him and rejoice all of our days.