There is so much cause for dissatisfaction in the course of one single day. You can try to get a grip on your own life, your own choices and plans, but not having control over anybody else’s life means that we all wander around frustrating others and being frustrated by them. There’s the ruination of the beautiful couch by a mean cat with claws, the breaking of the beautiful hand-painted platter by a child who doesn’t know what his right hand nor his left hand is doing, the misunderstanding that’s left a fragile friendship practically shattered. Frustration and woe. Dissatisfaction.
As for me, though, I shall be satisfied. I shall find it enough. And the source, the substance of my satisfaction, will be his likeness; the likeness of the one to whom the psalm is written. Who, in the very image and nature of God, became man so that I, even I, could look into his face and hear his voice and be satisfied.
There wasn’t anything about him that would have made me take a second look. There wasn’t anything in me that recognized or knew enough to know him. But that he called my name, and lifted up my head, and gathered up all the frustration and difficulty into himself. So, I shall be satisfied yet more when I behold him face to face; but I am pretty satisfied now, known as I am, by him and not another.
Anne Carlson Kennedy holds an MDiv from Virginia Theological Seminary and is the author of Nailed It: 365 Sarcastic Devotions for Angry or Worn-Out People (Kalos Press). She blogs at patheos.com/preventinggrace. Excerpted from Nailed It © Anne Carlson Kennedy, 2016. Used by permission.
