Finding Soul-Deep Satisfaction in Jesus

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"An Encounter with Living Water."

"God as Our Reward."

"God Is Enough."

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Dannah Gresh: I don't know about you, but I’ve been tired a lot lately! They say you should be really careful if you get hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. At any rate, I succumbed to the screen. I began watching a series and before I knew it, realized it wasn’t okay content for me to marinate in. It disrupted my contentment, for one thing. It robbed me of it. In fact, it created discontent. 

For two nights, I binged.

And then, I asked, "What am I doing? Lord, give me a hunger for You." I woke up the next day. Pulled out my Bible and prayer journal and soaked myself in the Word. Jesus was so kind to me. A prayer I have been praying was right there in the text for my Bible study—sweet confirmation. Here’s where I find contentment. My whole day was different. I feasted on the right source, and it grew contentment.

I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. You’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. 

This problem of discontentment that I just described isn’t a new one. Women have been looking for satisfaction outside of God since the beginning of time. Scripture tells the story of one such woman in John chapter 4. You might know her as “The Samaritan Woman” or “The Woman at the Well.” Erin Davis, wife, mom, and editor at Moody Publishers, gave a message on this passage, and it was so relatable. I hope you’ll consider where you’re searching for living water as you listen.

Erin Davis: There’s all kinds of things that our body and our spirit is ever craving, ever craving, ever craving. I like how the Matthew Henry Commentary sums it up. He writes:

The imperfections of all our comforts in this world, they are not lasting, nor our satisfaction in them remaining. Whatever waters of comfort we drink of, we shall thirst again. Yesterday’s meat and drink will not do today’s work.

Whatever waters of comfort you drink from, if they’re not the Living Water, you’re going to be thirsty again soon. And probably, your appetite for comfort is just going to increase because it’s not going to satisfy.

So we have in us this constant craving, this constant need to be satisfied. And so the pull of something that can provide lasting satisfaction for us is great. That’s what’s happening with this Samaritan woman. She’s, like, “Tell me about it. Tell me how I don’t have to come back here with my bucket. Tell me where this living water is, and I’ll drink right now,” even though she didn’t understand what He was talking about.

The pull of finding lasting satisfaction in all of us is great, and that is what Jesus is offering her. He’s offering her satisfaction for her deepest cravings, far beyond physical thirstiness—and we’ll learn what those are in a minute. But when we find our satisfaction in Him, that bubbles up into eternal life. That’s what He says. He says it becomes a fountain that outpours out of you. So there’s this sweet image there.

Let’s look at John 4:16–26 and figure out where He takes it from here. He’s dialoguing with her saying, “I want to give you the living water.”

She’s saying, “I want to take it, but I don’t have a bucket.” They kind of dialogue back and forth, and then here He comes. He’s going to hammer it home in verse 16.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him [I imagine sheepishly], “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

This is not a woman unfamiliar with her Word. She knew Messiah was coming. She’d heard that He was going to be a man of redemption. She was familiar with what Anna knew, which was that God, Divinity, matters. The way she encountered Jesus’ divinity near that well was that He pointed out her sin. He knew that the man she was living with was not her husband, and He knew that she’d had five husbands. But I think it was so sweet how He got her to reveal that to Him.

Before she met Jesus, the Samaritan woman had known a lifetime of pain and rejection—five husbands. We don’t know why her relationships ended, but Scripture makes it clear that she had experienced heartbreak over and over and over. My guess is that her picker-outer was broken.

My picker-outer was broken for a long time. The guy was a loser. I had a crush on him. He was going to treat me bad. I wanted to spend time with him. I attracted the wrong kind of guy over and over and over. And the problem was not the guys. The problem was I was drinking from the wrong well, and I was trying to be satisfied and loved and filled up by the wrong kind of thing.

That’s what’s happening with the Samaritan woman. She was likely looking for fulfillment in those romantic relationships, but it was just like coming to Jacob’s well. She’d drop her bucket down into a new relationship, and for a little while she’d feel loved and accepted and safe and secure, but inevitably she got thirsty again.

Maybe romance is not the well you run to. Maybe it’s your appearance or the praise of others or what you can achieve or having the perfect family—that’s the thing you look to to make you feel fulfilled, to make you think you’re okay. But no matter what you run to, the Bible is clear that only God can satisfy your deepest longings. He’s the only one who can quiet that grumbling in your tummy of constant craving. He’s the only answer that’s not transient.

So we see the lesson that Jesus was trying to teach this woman at the well throughout Scripture. In Psalm 107:9, it says: “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”

He satisfies the longing soul. I have a longing soul, and you have a longing soul. And the way my body is ever craving food and water and rest, there are things my soul is ever craving, like peace and love and acceptance. Jesus is the only answer for the cravings of my soul.

He recognizes that my soul gets hungry, and He promises to fill me up with good things. There’s such an image there. He doesn’t just give me scraps enough to get by. He fills my hunger with a feast with good things.

Psalm 145:16 says: “You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

God is open-handed toward you. He’s not tight-fisted about the things you need and want. He’s open-handed. He will satisfy you. He’s willing and able to satisfy you.

Philippians 4:19 says: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

He doesn’t need a bucket. He doesn’t satisfy your needs out of your resources. He satisfies them out of His riches in glory.

Dannah: Erin Davis, encouraging you to drink from the well that truly satisfies. I love hearing the testimonies of women who have found soul-deep contentment in Jesus—the kind nothing on this earth can’t offer. So far today, you’ve heard a little of my testimony. And Erin’s. and the Samaritan woman’s! We’ve all discovered Jesus to be the only all-satisfying one. 

Now, if you’re still not quite convinced, here’s another friend to encourage you. Stacey Salsbery is a farmer’s wife, mother of four, and her story, well, it’s a story so many women share. Nancy and I sat down with her as she told us about her journey to experience satisfaction in Jesus. I’ll let her tell you more.

Stacey Salsbery: Well, it was always a dream of mine—as most little girls, maybe—to be married, to have my own family. When high school didn’t satisfy me like I thought it would, it was college that I could not wait to get to. And while college was a wonderful season of life, it didn’t last forever. 

Graduation came and went and life was moving on, and I wanted to be married. That was the next thing I looked to: “Give me a husband, Lord! I need one!” 

Nancy: And there’s nothing wrong with high school, college, husband, or marriage, unless we’re thinking that’s the thing that’s going to make me happy.

Stacey: Right, exactly. I believed the truths of God’s Word, and I would have told you I believed the truths of God’s Word. Yet I still found myself saying, “Yes, Lord . . . but . . . I want this, too!”

Dannah: Well, and when we say that, “I believe God’s Word . . . yes, Lord . . . but . . .” What we’re really saying is, “God is not enough. That living water just isn’t going to be enough, because I need a boyfriend! I need great grades! I need a husband!” 

So many times I see women . . . Nancy, going back to John 4. The thirst that that woman was dealing with really did have to do with wanting a man to be her satisfaction, and to quench that thirst over and over and over again.

I meet great Christian women who really do love the Lord, but they want a husband. They’re not putting the love of God and the relationship with Him in a sufficient place. So they get the husband, and he’s a good husband, and he’s a godly husband, and he might even be the kind of husband who listens to Revive Our Hearts on tractors! (laughter) But they’re still thirsty on the other side. 

So they’re like, “God, fix the husband!” and “God, make the husband better!” and “God . . .” And it never ends, does it? We just go from well to another.

Nancy: There’s nothing wrong with wanting a husband. A husband is a good thing, and that’s a good gift. There’s nothing wrong with asking God for those good gifts. But when the equation in our lives is, “I have to have Jesus plus . . .” (anything else; fill in the blank!) 

At a different season of life, it may not be just a husband, but children. I know you are married, Stacey, but did you find yourself after you got a husband, thinking, I need more?

Stacey: Yes. I have a wonderful husband, and I do want to put that caveat in there. He is a wonderful, godly man! And yet, marriage was not intended to satisfy us like a relationship with Christ is intended to satisfy us. 

So even after marriage, the next thing I looked towards was children: “Oh, it’s because I need to be a mother. That’s what’s missing!” So I had a baby, and then I had another one, and then I four!

Nancy: You find out pretty soon that those children aren’t looking to satisfy you; they’re looking to you to satisfy them!

Stacey: That’s exactly right! I felt depleted as a mom. It was not fulfilling me as I thought it would. I was the little girl looking for the stay-at-home mom table on career day—that’s what I had always wanted. And then, when I had it in my grasp, I thought, What’s wrong with me? Why does this not satisfy me like I thought that it would?

It’s because it’s not intended to satisfy me like a relationship with Christ is.

Dannah: When did you start to realize that? I have to say, what I hear is something I see in my own life sometimes, and what I hear from other women: you’re never really living in the here-and-now for Jesus, because you’re so consumed with what you need in the future and what you’re asking Him for in the future.

So, when did you start to really say, “This cycle isn’t working. I need to change it!” What did that look like? Take us to that room, that day, that time period when you really understood, “I have to stop this pattern!”

Stacey: I had kind of had enough. I was tired of being discontented! I had so many wonderful things, so many blessings, that God had given me . . . and yet, I still wanted more! Even with kids, it became, “Now I need my alone time. Now I need date nights. Now I need a vacation. Oh, wait! Now we need a bigger house!”

I didn’t like what was coming out of me! I knew the discontentment wasn’t right. And by the grace of God, He woke me up. He did that through Scripture. I was reading in my Bible one day . . . and I will never forget this moment. I was studying the book of Genesis. So I had been in the Word, I had been reading.

But I would say it was just a part of my life; it wasn’t where I was seeking for satisfaction. But I opened up my Bible; I had been studying in Genesis 15. And in Genesis 15:1, God said to Abraham, “Abraham, I am your very great reward.” (paraphrased) And I thought, Wow! Is God my reward?

He had been, maybe, a part of the blessing in my life, but He was not my reward. It struck me how much I wanted God to be my reward! 

Dannah: The picture I’m getting in my head is . . . Stacey, sweet middle school, high school, college, young mom Stacey really loves Jesus, but she’s waiting for the next award or reward He’s going to give her for following Him . . . right? 

Stacey: Yes!

Dannah: And suddenly now, you’re realizing, “I don’t want something in His hands, I want it to just be Him, His presence, that is the reward!”

Stacey: Yes, yes! It was a switch in thought for me. It wasn’t the blessings of God that I was seeking, well, it was, but it didn’t need to be. It needed to be Him! He needed to be the one thing above all else that I was seeking.

Nancy: And, practically, what changed at that moment? What did you do differently? Were you just thinking differently? How did that change the trajectory for you?

Stacey: First, I confessed my sin. I realized that I had been chasing all of these other things. Not that they were bad things, but just spending years of begging God for this or that. But what if we beg God for Him? And so, I started doing that: “Lord, I don’t know how to do this well, but give me more of You. That’s what I need in my life. I want You to be my reward!” 

I prayed, and I asked Him to fill me with that longing for Him. What a prayer to pray, right?! He is faithful to do that. And He did!

Dannah: Did it change overnight? You read that Bible verse, you prayed that prayer, and suddenly your mind was in alignment with that truth. Or did you still find yourself slipping into the desire for things or other rewards?

Stacey: I definitely still found myself slipping back into it. You know, my eyes had been awakened to the truth, but it is still a constant fight for God to be my reward, and not this or that or success in this area or even for certain successes with my children. It’s a constant fight and reminder. I have to be in God’s Word daily if I’m going to be able to fight against that, but there was also a joy that had been missing. That was a gift!

I don’t think that contentment is something that we can conjure up. I can’t tell myself, “Okay, Stacy, now you need to be content with this. You can do this. You can do this!” Contentment was really a gift I found that God gave me as I spent time with Him. It was a blessing that I received from Him!

Dannah: What a freeing piece of wisdom from Stacey Salsbery. We don’t have to conjure up contentment in our own strength. Actually, we can’t! Instead, we’re invited to say, “Lord, help me to be satisfied in you. Teach me to long for you. Become my greatest treasure.” Would you take a moment to ask God for this today? As Stacey testified, this is a prayer He loves to answer. 

Now, we may not be conjuring up contentment in our strength, but that doesn’t mean we just sit back and say, “Okay, God, hit me with that contentment pixie dust!” We have to seek it. We have to choose it. Satisfaction in Jesus is something both given and learned. Prayed for and pursued. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth to share from her own experience in this area.

Nancy: There is something else that God has taught me in a practical way about this whole area of contentment, and that is contentment is a choice. It is a choice, and it can be learned. It's not something that some people are naturally more contented. They may seem more contented, but they are more contented because they made a choice to be contented. 

You may have found yourself over these last sessions recognizing that you have a discontented heart. You’re seeing some of the characteristics of a murmuring, grumbling, complaining, discontented heart.

Let me tell you, you can learn to be content. No matter what your past, no matter how much you may have failed in this area in the past, by the power of God’s Spirit, if you’re a child of God you can learn the pathway of contentment, because, contentment is not based on a change in my circumstances. Rather, it is based on a change in me, the willingness to embrace God’s choices. Contentment is based in a faithful, loving God who never changes. 

In the fourth chapter of the book of Philippians, Paul said, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” I’ve learned. Now if we’re going to learn contentment, that means we’re going to have to experience some circumstances where our natural response would be to grumble, to be discontent, so expect it. If you want to develop this beautiful, rare jewel of a contented spirit, expect that God will take you to school in this subject and provide in your life circumstances that are not easy to embrace. 

Paul experienced a lot of those circumstances as he was out serving the Lord, but he said, "I’ve learned; I’ve learned! I’ve been to school on this subject. I’ve learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (see Phil. 4:12).

And in the very next verse, Philippians chapter 4, verse 13, one of the most familiar verses in the Bible, is written about this very subject of contentment. You know the verse. He says, “I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.” I can do everything. What is that everything? The everything that Paul is talking about right there is, "I can choose contentment in the midst of every situation, every circumstance because Christ is the one who gives me strength." 

You see, some of us will tend to hear a session like this and leave thinking, I’m going to be a contented woman if it kills me! It may, because it is not natural. We have to recognize that naturally I am not a contented person. My natural response to the trials of life will be to grumble, to murmur, to complain just like the Children of Israel did over and over again. 

But Paul says, “I have a power living within me, the life of Christ, who can enable me and will enable me, if I let Him, to give thanks, to be content in every circumstance and situation.”

We talked several sessions ago about Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn writer, and how she expressed gratitude that God should have allowed her to become blind at the age of six weeks as the result of a doctor’s careless mistake. I have in my home a little plaque that has on it these words first written by Fanny Crosby. Simply, “Take the world, but give me Jesus.”

Some of you know that old song, and here is how that first stanza goes,

Take the world, but give me Jesus.
All its joys are but a name. 
But His love abideth ever, 
Through eternal years the same.

People will come and go. Circumstances will change; they will go up and down. There will be storms of life, but there is one unchanging reality in the midst of all of that. It is that God is. Just that: He is, and that He is enough. His love is eternal. He never changes. So when in the midst of that storm, take heart, be encouraged, let your spirit be at rest. Let God cultivate in you that rare jewel of Christian contentment knowing that God truly is enough.

As we bring this series on contentment to a close, let me just ask, “Where does God find you?” Does He find you maybe with a discontented heart? Murmuring over His provision? Discontented with the circumstances you find yourself in? Or do you have a contented heart? Are you content with God’s provision? Would you just say, "It’s enough. What God has given me is enough. God has promised to meet all of my needs, and if there is something I don’t have, then it must be something that I don’t need—at least right this moment. And if God knows that it is a need, then He will supply it."

Are you content with God’s presence in your life? Is He enough for you? Are you content with God’s plan for your life? Whether you can see it and understand it or figure it out or not, are you content to know that He knows? Are you content to live with mystery if you have to? But content to know that He has a plan that He is working out and to say, “Lord, Yes! I accept it. I embrace it; I welcome Your plan in my life. You are enough.”

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with some really helpful questions to consider as we close today. As Nancy mentioned, she’s created a whole series on contentment. We’ll link to that in today’s transcript. 

If you’ve been able to identify today that this is a real growth area for you, then Nancy’s series may be a huge help and encouragement. You can find that at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. 

June is coming to a close, and that means you’ve only got a few more days to claim our June resource. Friend, it is really a good one! We’re offering Nancy’s updated devotional called Dwell: 30 Days with God in the Psalms. It contains Nancy’s reflections on thirty psalms, helping you to draw near to the Lord and experience rest in His presence. When you make a donation of any amount before the end of the month, we’ll send that your way. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com to give and request Dwell: 30 Days with God in the Psalms.

Well, I suppose you’ve probably heard that the United States is celebrating 250 years of independence. It’s everywhere you look! Next week on this program, we’re going to look at ways we, in our walk with God need to declare not independence, but surrender—to God, to His will, to His ways in our lives. So we’ll have kind of a declaration of dependence next weekend.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan. calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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