The holy ride of dissatisfaction

This week I got on the subway in New York. I was more than half way to where I was going when a broken-down train in front meant we had to go back three stations. Frustrating!

There is a gap to mind when considering God’s promises and fulfilment, which will need us to be aware of what happens when things don’t always go smoothly in between.

When Emma and I handed over our church I was grateful that Steve, a pastor friend of mine, agreed to walk with me over the next year. Trusted friendships like these are like a fridge filled with your favourite foods. They will keep you going for some time.

‘Call’ always seems to start with restlessness in the spirit, but I should also add another thing: dissatisfaction. Restlessness and dissatisfaction are both unlikely but necessary travelling companions in any transition. They nudge us to move on to the next thing.

Before lives can be redirectioned or renewed there appears to be a need to go on a holy ride of discontentment. But I have noticed too it is always proportional to the promises of God.

We start our journey with a headful of ideas and a handful of opportunities, but we will always need to watch our posture as we can easily become emptied of the transcendent and see it reduce our vision for life. Left unattended, our motivation can change from doing the will of God but to simply getting the hell out of where we are!

Good transitions will leave us feeling satisfied, renewed, and expectant. Bad transitions will see us turn to the bad medicine of ‘just get through this and I will be fine’. Not a great way to repair the soul!

So we are left musing good dissatisfaction versus bad dissatisfaction. Mark Sayers observes, “We cannot escape from the promise that we can have it all. We also cannot escape from the truth that we can’t have it all.”

So how do we keep moving forward? I guess we can try and suppress it and hum loudly, but a better way is to allow ourselves to take the holy ride of dissatisfaction with all its disruptions and frustrations.

Yet, keep in mind always our destination is always faithful and fruitful living in Christ, not earthly goals or success. This is the place where I choose to flourish. This is where the soul finds its satisfaction.

“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” — Isaiah 58:11