what brings you satisfaction?

In reading The Divine Hours, this caught my attention:

Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple! (Ps 65:4)

The “goodness” of God’s house (some translations say beauty of His house) will satisfy me; and this goodness or beauty is equated with the holiness of His temple. I don’t know about you, but this is hard for me to grasp.

When I read that God will satisfy the poor with bread, I understand it. In fact, the word used for satisfied is the same Hebrew word translated filled in Exodus 16 when God tells the Israelites they will be “filled with bread” in the morning. The word means “to be filled, sated, surfeited”–when was the last time you heard someone use that word?–or “to have in abundance.”

In my head I know that God is supposed to be everything to me, as in the Dennis Jernigan song that says “You are my strength when I am weak / You are the treasure that I seek / You are my all in all.” But believing it in my heart, experiencing it as a reality–that’s a different story. For myself, and I suspect many others, the song that better describes day-to-day experience is the catchy “Fabulous” from High School Musical 2 (can you tell we watch the Disney Channel a lot at my house?):

I want fabulous
That is my simple request
All things fabulous
Bigger and better and best
I need something inspiring
To help me get along
I need a little fabulous
Is that so wrong?

As I look at these lyrics, I think the song writers were on to something: we do indeed need something inspiring, and there’s nothing wrong with that need. God created each of us with desire, and desire by definition must be filled or satisfied. The question becomes, then, what fills me, what brings satisfaction? Or perhaps this is the better question: “How do I find satisfaction in and with God?” I have some ideas that I will share in the next few days. In the meantime, what about you? How do you find satisfaction with God?