I CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION
by David Sisler
British satirist Hector Hugh Munro usually wrote under the pen name, Saki. With that appellation, he is credited as saying, "Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me: they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like – and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres."
Would you think Saki would have categorized his life as satisfied or dissatisfied?
Colleen was shopping for a new dress. She found one that was the epitome of youthful grace and charm. It also looked two sizes too small. Undaunted, she squirmed in, breathed deep and looked at herself in a mirror.
The saleslady had had a slow day so she said, "It looks good on you."
Colleen replied with sadness, "To me, it just looks crowded."
Satisfied or dissatisfied?
Someone placed an ad in a Mobile, Alabama newspaper: "For sale. Motivation Tapes. Some never used."
Satisfied or dissatisfied?
One evening Caroline noticed that her daughter, who was performing a popular teenage pastime – controlling the telephone, wasn't talking. She was just listening. Finally Caroline asked what her boyfriend was saying that kept her quiet for so long.
"Nothing," her daughter replied. "We aren't speaking."
Satisfied or dissatisfied?
A man walked into a bait shop anchored along the shores of Lake Livingston, Texas, and asked for 50 cents' worth of worms. Calculating that he might not have enough bait for the fishing trip, he asked, "How many worms do I get for 50 cents?"
The lanky, white-haired Texan replied, "I'll do right by you, son. Life's too short to be countin' worms."
Satisfied or dissatisfied?
Jesus watched two men praying. One was very self-satisfied. The other was very dissatisfied.
The first man was a spiritual leader. He possessed a good spiritual reputation and he enjoyed it. He was so satisfied with himself that he stood on the street corner and began to pray:
"God, I thank you I am not like other people. I do not swindle anyone. I am not an adulterer. I fast twice each week. I pay tithes on everything I get. I thank you that I am not like that crooked tax-collector standing over there."
The other man, a tax-collector, was the complete opposite. If any man was crooked, he was – you couldn't be a tax-collector in the Roman system and not be a crook. If any man could honestly be labeled a sinner, it was he. If any man ever needed to pray, he was the man.
Imagine being so dissatisfied with your life that when you pray, you do not have the spiritual courage to look up to heaven. With his head lowered, the tax-collector struck himself on his chest and prayed, "God, be merciful to me. I am a sinner."
It is a good thing to be dissatisfied.
Ask a rich man the secret of his success and he'll say, "I was poor and I was dissatisfied with being poor."
Ask the president of a corporation who started out as the janitor his motivation and he'll say, "It was a good job, but I became dissatisfied with being a janitor and I set my goals on the executive suite."
Ask the man who was born with a physical handicap and who is now a topflight athlete what happened and he'll say, "I was dissatisfied with being on the sidelines, with being a spectator, and I decided to change things."
Ask any believer in Jesus Christ, and somewhere before his conversion, he became very dissatisfied with his life as he was then living it. You were not created to be satisfied with your own life. You were created to be satisfied in the life of God's only Son. Honestly, right now, where is your satisfaction?
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Copyright 2002 by David Sisler. All Rights Reserved.
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