Unsatisfy

A good long while ago, I started asking God to unsatisfy me.  Is that even a word? I don't know, and I'm not pausing to look it up. :)

If I'm being honest here, which is what I do when I write (albeit sometimes too honest...), I am a girl who has been far too easily satisfied by the things of this world. At least momentarily, for the satisfaction never lasts long before I find myself longing for more-

It's easy for me to turn to others to fulfill inner needs. I have a strong and God centered marriage, a supportive family, amazing children, and I'm extremely blessed with a few close friends who each play their special role in my life. I don't have to look far to find what I'm looking for, or at least what I think I'm looking for. And yet it stands, that those things in all their merit, are never able to fully complete me. 

 I believe strongly that God created his children with a desire, a craving, that cannot be satisfied with earthly relationships or things. He created each of us, me especially it seems, with a longing for communion that is unquenchable by anyone and anything other than God himself. 

For far too long, I held expectations in friendships that were just unrealistic. Unrealistic both for where my friends are in life and for any human to satisfy. And so, there I'd find myself-unsatisfied. 

There was a time when I almost pulled completely away from one of the dearest and strongest friendships of my life, simply because I expected her and longed for her to be more than she could or should be to me. 

 Life is ever changing and with husbands and children, life brought many, many changes to our friendship-something I struggled with greatly because I so wanted to always be that set of best friends who talked every single day, who didn't miss a special event in one another's lives, who knew every detail of each significant happening in one another's lives. I wanted to always be how we had always been. I thought that with each special event missed, with each funny or sad moment unshared due to distance, kids, schedules and life that we were less than what we had been for time that spanned over a decade before. 

Where we were was different, and I was unsatisfied. 

It's not surprising God allowed me to experience this, and I'm thankful he protected that friendship in the way that He did. (It's now stronger than ever and I love and appreciate the place he has us in, for it's "ours". A unique friendship for just the two of us)  

He knows me better than anyone, He created me after all. He knows the history of my human tendency to lean on my eartly relationships more than I lean on Him. He isn't surprised by it, but I believe He's allowed changes and thrown curve balls at times to spur and encourage my dependence on Him. 

God always is at work, orchestrating this and that to bring all things together for His purposes. My heart has needed, for a long time, to be moved to a place where I depended on Him alone. Leaned on Him in my hard times, desired friendship with Him above any other, went to Him with my "moments", prayed to Him rather than venting to my friends.  

My heart needed to need Him more and more. I found myself craving communion with Him and allowing Him to fulfill me, to satisfy me, to make me whole. 

It was then, that my relationships on earth began to come alive in a new way-when I removed unrealistic expectations from those relationships and recognized that only God can be to me what He intended to be for me, I began to experience a security that I hadn't known before. 

He satisfied the unsatisfied places and He made me whole. My friendships and other relationships were less "me" centered, as I found my security in Christ. No longer did I need reassurance, frequent visits or daily conversations to believe in a friendship that was real.  As I leaned on Him to be my closest friend, He began strengthening and renewing some of my closest earthly relationships. 

The habit didn't come quickly, and it still is a struggle at times to go first to Him. But I know when I start to feel that itch of discontentment, that desire for more, that He is gently nudging me-softly whispering, "I'm here. Come sit with me, spend time with me. Talk to me. Listen for me. Let me satisfy you in a way that only I can."  

I often pray for myself that he will take me through lonely times, broken times, difficult times. Why? Because I know it's in these times of my life, when I am weak that His power is so visible to me. I sometimes long for the harder times in life because they push me to lean on Him more, to seek His face constantly, to draw the comfort from Him that brings me new life. It is in those moments when my unsatisfied places become satisfied, when the inner cravings of my heart that he designed to be uniquely fulfilled only by Him, feast upon living truth and become whole.