BEING SATISFIED IN A DISSATISFIED WORLD
(8-minute read)
HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH YOUR LIFE? These days, a lot has been written about the rising trends in job dissatisfaction and quiet quitting, marital unhappiness and silver divorce, the shrinking supply of affordable housing in cities, the loneliness and depression in the digital age, and the list goes on. Interestingly, the 2022 Quality of Life Survey found that people who prioritize material possessions and the finer things in life were the most unhappy, despite being better off financially. The 2024 World Happiness Report also shows that younger people born after 1980 tend to be more unhappy with life (with Singapore ranking low in happiness for individuals under 30).
Meantime, we see what others have on social media, and regardless of the difference in our abilities, backgrounds and achievements, we aspire to have the same. Author and professor Sullivan opined that the widespread use of social media has fuelled “materialistic values, which are associated with increased stress and reduced life satisfaction.”
This is not to say that all feelings of dissatisfactions are problematic. Being dissatisfied can motivate us to examine ourselves, our environments and our relationship patterns and lead us to grow and make positive changes in our lives. The problem is when people become easily dissatisfied after they have experienced positive changes. So how do Christians stay contented in a world that measures happiness by how easy we get what we want?
God cares when we are stuck in a rut. Yet, He does not want us to be so contented that we resist making necessary changes, and cease to grow. Certainly not! If anything, God Himself is a disruptor of the unhealthy status quo. He orchestrates change not only on the individual level, but also on a national scale!
Exodus 3:7-8 recorded God’s conversation with Moses from a burning bush. “Then the Lord told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land.” God was literally saying, That’s it! I’ve seen enough suffering! Through Moses, God orchestrated a great migration of Israelites out of Egypt to an occupied but productive land nearby. What a game changer!
However, as soon as the Israelites stepped out of the Red Sea and faced a water crisis, they started complaining (Exodus 15:22-24). By the middle of the second month into their new life of freedom, they were unhappy not with food scarcity, but with the lack of food variety. “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16:1-3). Into the second year of their migration towards the Promised Land, the non-Israelites who were among them “began to crave the good things of Egypt. And the people of Israel also began to complain.” (Numbers 11:4 NLT).
Before we judge the Israelites for being ingrates, let us examine how easy it is to let dissatisfaction seep into our appreciation of life, and stunt the flourishing of gratitude in our hearts. When God provides a new job, do we complain about the travel and the demands of the role, or do we upskill and update ourselves to deliver with excellence? When God provides a new home, do we pick on the neighbours who are different from us?
To maintain a healthy level of life satisfaction, we can use three critical questions to keep our gratitude in check:
WHERE IS MY FOCUS?
The Israelites were constantly focused on the desert and not the Promised Land that they were heading to. They were so habituated to oppressive conditions under Egyptian rule that they found freedom a strange companion. So they focused on what was lacking – the lack of water, the lack of refuge from the hot desert conditions, and the lack of predictability in their everyday life. They might have left Egypt but Egypt had not left their hearts. Their intense desire for what was familiar overshadowed God’s great and unfailing love that set them free from living in abject slavery under Egyptian masters.
We, too, can fall into the same trap if we do not keep track of where our lives are heading. We can rigidly hold onto something because we have put in so many years of our lives in it. This could involve a job, romantic relationships, friendships, maladjustments and personality traits that become immutable aspects of who we are, contributing to our failure to thrive where we are planted. We listen to ‘foreign rabble’ among us – ungodly people who love the good life and despise the discipline that leads to spiritual maturity. These are the rabble rousers who preach self-reliance and godless living; yet, some of us mindlessly agree with them because we think that anything that sounds right must be good for us even if it is not biblical.
Leading a nation to the Promised Land through a journey of existential crisis everyday, Moses prayed this prayer, “Satisfy us in the morning with Your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” It was a prayer that put God’s eternal love and His daily sustenance front and centre of their existence (Psalm 90:14).
The apostle Paul, whose life had everything but the semblance of routine normalcy, taught us what contributed to his life satisfaction: “Not that I speak from need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with little, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13 NASB). In short, he was saying Christ is enough for me!
WHAT DO I REMEMBER?
The Israelites remembered eating the good produce from the fertile lands in Egypt. After generations, they had forgotten that their forefathers came to live in Egypt because of Joseph, and not because the host country was remarkably hospitable towards the Israelites. Looking back at what filled their stomachs, they despised the manna that they had as a free people living outside Egypt.
“We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted. But now our appetites are gone. All we ever see is this manna!” (Numbers 11:5-6).
Have we allowed comfort-seeking and certainty replace our confidence in God? Do we still remember the aching void in our hearts before we encountered Jesus, and now we just want to fill it with pleasure? Do we recall going through life utterly alone before we believed that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, and now we have little care for His opinion? Can we recollect the days when we sprang out of bed each day ready for opportunities to touch lives, and now we just want to retreat from being active members of society? Are we still aware that it is Jesus’ righteousness that covers our flaws, and the grace of God that we are loved?
In the Beatitudes (or teachings called Sermon on the Mount), Jesus taught, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6 NASB). Indeed, we are satisfied to the degree that we remember the difference that God has made in our lives.
ON WHOM DO I PLACE MY TRUST?
Listen, God could easily have given the Israelite refugees a weekly, monthly or longer supply of food but He chose to run a daily delivery of fresh supplies. (God never has supply chain issues!) This effectively disabled any long-term resource planning for the people and put them into a state of existential crisis and dependency on God’s providence every day.
For forty years in the desert, the Israelites did not have to toil for their food but only follow God’s instructions in how they collected their provisions for the day and His prohibitions against hoarding or storing any food (Exodus 16:35). They were assured of food security – something that many people living in today’s world do not have. They might have preferred to pick and choose what they wanted to eat and drink rather than be given a fixed menu for forty years but those were the exact conditions for producing a spirit of gratitude or grumbling towards the God of divine providence. Every blessing that is not turned into praise turns into pride and ingratitude!
Theologian, John Piper, maintained that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Satisfied people are grateful people and grateful people live and love differently, not passively. Our satisfaction in life demonstrates who God is to us. Even if we are in highly uncertain situations, we can be confident that Jesus is our advocate who defends the helpless, the marginalized and those who face discrimination. We may not like the limited menu of solutions He offers, but we can be sure that they are superior to anything we can imagine through their outcomes.
The only way we can be satisfied in a dissatisfied world is to stay focused on where God is taking us to, to remember what He has done for us, and to continue to trust Him in spite of the unconventional methods He employs to develop our faith in Him.
Proverbs 3:5-6 offers this ageless advice: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
REFERENCES
(2024, January 26) Singaporeans Less Happy The Straits Times. │ (2024, March 21) Singapore Falls 5 Spots to 30th in World Happiness Ranking CNA. │ Sullivan B. (2024, February 5) Social Media Creates Unhappiness by Promoting Materialism Psychology Today. │State of the Workplace Global Report (2023) Gallup. │World Happiness Report (2024) Gallup.
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 1 June 2024.
